Kinetic Dichotomy
by ShinyKendo
Summary: Slightly-disjointed misadventures of Trainers in the region of Licentia.
1. Trentgeist, Pt 1

For no very good reason, I decided to put some roleplaying topics from the RP site_ In Licentia_ up on this fan fiction-y site (_mostly because seriously who else is gonna read them over there!_). Of course they'll be out of sequence, and come without the usual profile-related goods, but should be simple enough to follow. This thing was actually written with me and some other random Jordan guy. The Vandalgeist character and the other guy who travels with the team later are mine, and Trenton is Jordan's, and the text was colored blue/green to differentiate who wrote what in the original topic, but we can't do that here, no now you know. Also all other characters are NPCs. Also only the first post is centered, and the rest are just left-aligned, so I hope that's not jarring. Also there will be links to some simplistic Paint pictures after some segments.

In this story, Geist and Trent take a job.

It's called Trentgeist, and was completed July 22, 2011.

OH AND BY THE WAY, this site does not allow interrobangs (exclamationmark+questionmark) for some unknown reason! That's really bad. That's, like the worst. This is a definite downgrade from how it looked on the actual roleplay forum. Just remember that whenever you see an awkward-looking exclamation mark. In addition, bolded, italicized and/or underlined words might delete a space for some reason. Just putting that out there while I still can.

...Let's get on with it.

* * *

15)  
Name: North Winde  
Time Limit: None  
Objective: So my boyfriend and I were fooling around on Everlong Beach, but then all these buff guys in masks came and shooed us off. That's not so bad, but I'd meant to propose to him there and when I got home, I realized the ring was missing. I went back the next day, but I couldn't find it. According to the locals, it either got swept into the sea when high tide came or it got swiped by the local Pokemon that like to take things off the beach. Either way, I'll need a good adventurer to help me out!  
Reward: Blew all my money on the ring. Sorry.  
Notes: Be creative. Do it for the RP experience. Evolve something.  
Status: Open

"Okay. Here's the RP challenge. Can Vandalgeist do it!

After months of sitting around at Many Crossroads, presumably terrorizing the people with her awesome graffiti skills, Vandalgeist picks up an old, crusty mission from THA. She tracks the mission back to some girl named North, who has mostly moved on. Realizing that she could totally cash this ring in AND maybe even get a reward once North realizes what a good job she did, Vandalgeist heads out to Everlong Beach! Plus, there are crystals under them waters. She could go crystal mining, and sell them for large moneys!

On her adventure, she meets North's boyfriend, Brook (?) Starr. Unlike North, he's willing to reconnect. So Vandalgeist decides...to go ring shopping. She finds the perfect ring for him, one that seems to match the exact description from North, and tries to set up a meeting for the two of them at Everlong Beach.

(RP results may vary.)"

After five harrowing flights of stairs, the door to North's apartment was just ahead. Apartment 6B. That was it!

She stepped up and knocked on the door with the back of her knuckle. After a few seconds, the door opened. "Are you North Winde?" she asked.

The young woman looking back at her seemed like she had just gotten up, with unkempt blond hair and droopy eyelids. "Yes," she muttered.

She handed North a piece of crumpled, stained paper. "This is the mission you sent to the Trainer Help Agency, right?" North nodded. "I'm here to help you out."

"No, that's..."

Without invitation, the Trainer squeezed past and let herself into North's apartment. Being tired, North simply sighed, closed the door, and followed.

The first thing she did was leave her dirty sneaker tracks all over her green carpet. Then she dumped her big white snowboard (a _snowboard_, right? What kind of idiot would even -) on the _glass_coffee table, with such nonchalance that it almost gave North a heart attack. Then she yawned and flew backward onto the leather couch, as if it were hers.

She glanced up at a small, black-and-white television sitting on a shelf. "What are you watching?" she said. "I can't even tell."

"Why do you care about what **TV show **I was watching?"

"Oh, just curious." North angrily wiggled the THA note around. "_Ohh,_ yeah, right. Sorry. I'm Vandalgeist, and -" North started to look angry. "_Calm down._ I _just _wanna help. This request must've been up for months. Do you want help or not?"

North was practically steaming from the ears.

"Exactly! I don't want help _now_. I've moved on!"

"You mean you bought a better ring?"

North sighed. She tried to calm down, but when it came down to The Geist, she just couldn't help feeling frustrated. "Please get out of my house."

"Do you have your boyfriend's phone number?" North opened the door. "Al_right_, I'm _go_ing! Don't get so passive-aggressive on me!" Vandalgeist snatched the paper out of North's hand, tucked her board under one arm, and marched out the door. North slammed it behind her.

_Hmph! She's lucky to have someone go out and do this crappy job for her. When she finds out I did all of this ring stuff for her, she'll **have** to give me something to represent her appreciation. It's not like I have anything better to do, anyway._

The best thing to clear away all those bitter thoughts was a good trip down the stairs. To her, it was a downhill racetrack. Vandalgeist set her board on the tile and stood on it. Slowly it started to whirr and buzz, and lift off the ground...for it was not a snowboard, but a mechanical hoverboard. Using her totally-pro maneuvering skills, Vandalgeist zoomed down the stairs in a near-spiral, howling like a wild child as she went.

North heard Vandalgeist's howling through the wall and thought, _What the hell is that girl doing? Get out already!_

The entrance to the apartment building was closed, but not completely. As she sailed through the hall, Vandalgeist stuck out her elbow and busted the door open, flying out onto the sidewalk. In one expert mid-air maneuver, Vandalgeist took the hoverboard and put it behind her head, and she herself landed safely on her feet.

Too bad nobody was around to see all that on this pitiful sidestreet. _Shoot!_Vandalgeist silently cursed.

Vandalgeist was a punk. A self-proclaimed gangster. She had long, solid black hair, which would always swoop around in an awesome fashion on her hoverboarding escapades, and sometimes get in her eyes (but if someone bumped into her then, it was **totally**their fault). She often didn't leave home without her gangstuh black slouchy knit hat (which, by the way, probably wasn't very gangstuh at all).

But no matter what the situation, she would _never_ go without her hoverboard. Years of intense training at Pristine Port had made her a hoverboarding _beast_(and not just in a self-proclaimed sense - she really was good). She liked to think people looked up to her because of it, but really, nobody cared. She also liked to think that it was absolutely necessary for her to go everywhere on this board.

Her other radical talent lie in the craft of super-fast graffiti application. She could fly past a building and leave an instant "VG" on the wall. Too bad, she thought, that graffiti was frowned upon in the world of Boatswain's Beach, Pristine Port's snooty cousin. This time, Vandalgeist couldn't help herself. She took a mini-spray can from her pocket and scribbled "NORTH WINDE" on the big red door to the apartment building. That'd learn her!

Vandalgeist whistled a little tune and hovered down the street at a relatively fast pace. Knowing absolutely no one could be in her path, she closed her eyes as well. It was times like these that made her feel carefree. She thought she'd just fly down the street like this until she hit someone...and after that, she'd make sure they knew it was **their **fault.

Eventually the street merged with a major road, and that road was filled with traffic. Vandalgeist outright refused to open her eyes until the first van honked its horn at her. When she did open them, she knew the hoverboard was hurdling toward a big delivery truck. No problem! Vandalgeist sped up and hovered straight over that thing.

On one side of this four-lane road was a huge, beautiful beach. This area was the beach within the beach, the Everlong Beach. On the other side: more cars. Vandalgeist was actually getting kind of tired of hoverboarding for the day, and didn't feel like sailing her way through traffic in an awesome manner. Sailing down to the beach in an awesome manner would no doubt lead to relaxation - or the possible hunt for North's ring.

That truck, fading into the distance, honked ferociously at her. She turned to it and waved before gliding down a sandy hill, straight toward the beach. The hoverboard disrupted a good amount of sand, causing an awesome stream of sand to kick up in her wake. She'd never used the thing over sandy terrain before! This stuff was in_sane_.

* * *

"Hey you!"

A scratchy voice sounded off and Trenton turned to see who was speaking to him. He was on his way to Boatswain Beach to spend some time at the various carnivals and things, but had been stopped by someone calling out at him. With a flick at his hair, he turned to see whoever it was and was rather unsurprised to see someone waving a fishing pole at him. "What do you want?" Trenton asked, sighing.

"I challenge you too a battle!" Trenton began to survey the person speaking to him and was rather surprised to see how...old the other man seemed. He had a massive, unruly, grey beard, not unlike thisone. How was a man _this_old still training Pokemon? Suddenly, everything Trenton knew about life was brought into question, as he'd thought that there was a certain age when people were to stop battling and training Pokemon.

He was wrong though, and he couldn't refuse the battle; it was part of being a trainer. One day, he'd like to punch whoever had made _those_rules. It was kind of ridiculous that he couldn't deny a fellow trainer a battle. There was no way he was going to be able to change them now though, so his only choice was to accept the challenge and hope it ended faster than he expected it to. "Fine, whatever. How many Pokemon do you have?"

"I have six," his fisherman replied and Trenton's expression took a turn for the worse, suddenly becoming very disgruntled. If his enemy had six Pokemon, then he would have to fight each of them, and that would take _**FOREVER**_! Well, perhaps he could get some easy battling experience off of this! Suddenly it seemed like a very good thing was happening to him! He could use this fight to get some experience for Arthur; his Weedle. There weren't very many Pokemon that the thing was on par with, but Trent had a good feeling that this grisly old fisherman only had Magikarp, just like the other two he had faced already had.

"Great! Go ahead and show me what you have then!" Trenton stated eagerly, taking his appropriate position across a makeshift battlefield. If his assumptions were correct and all the fisherman had _was_Magikarps, then he could very well have a Kakuna on his team soon. Arthur very much needed to battle and evolve, but it was going to take a bit of battling against something that couldn't hit that hard; and a bunch of Magikarp was the best possible choice.

The other man furrowed his brow suspiciously, wondering why Trenton's opinion on fighting him had changed so suddenly. In all honest, the old man didn't care what the young'un was thinking, he just wanted a battle. He was extremely eager to see if he couldn't reignite the old battling spark he'd had in his younger years. Unfortunately, most of his stronger Pokemon had gone off to do other things, and he was left with five Magikarp and a Tentacool. He should be able to take this young upstart though; at least with his trusted Tentacool.

Oh well. He snatched one of the six Pokeballs off of his belt and tossed it into the sand, releasing a fish that flopped about, "Karp! Karp!" Oh brilliant. He'd forgotten how pathetic Magikarp were and was suddenly embarrassed by his choices. If he'd chosen the sea as a battlefield, at least he'd have somewhere to run, but now he could do nothing but wait for his enemy to slay him.

Trenton grinned broadly. So his suspicions had been correct! The enemy did indeed only have Magikarp. At least for most of his Pokemon. This would be fun! At least for him and Arthur it would be. "Go, Arthur!" he said confidently, tossing a Pokeball onto the ground. His Weedle appeared, and stole a glance at Trent, then at his opponent. A...fish. A flopping fish was to be his enemy here? Very well then.

"Use Poison Sting!" Trent commanded, and the Weedle charged his enemy with his head down, the spike glowing purple, with a battle cry of _'Weedle!_as he scooted across the sand. He moved surprisingly quickly for his species and soon drove his needle into the side of the Magikarp.

"Karpp!" The fish screamed in pain as it felt the needle jabbed into it, and the fisherman sighed. That Magikarp was done, wasn't it? It stopped flopping and he returned it to its Pokeball and released another one of the things. This was definitely not going his way at all.

Trenton was resisting the urge to gleefully laugh. He was absolutely positive that Arthur was going to evolve here, even if it was going to be a _little_bit tedious. "Ready to do the same thing, Arthur?" He asked, looking down at the Weedle who nodded confidently.

"Right then, Poi-"

"No! It's my turn now!" The enemy trainer barked and Trenton stared at him incredulously.

"_Why!_You can only do one thing!" Trenton rubbed his temples. He had not been expecting something like this from the fisherman. Why couldn't he just Poison sting his Pokemon to death with no issues? "Hurry up then!"

"Shaddap, young'un! I'm thinkin'!" The bearded man barked back and Trenton almost ran over there and punched him in the face. "Magikarp, use Splash Attack!" He ordered eventually and the fish flopped even more uselessly than he normally did.

"Are you done!" Trenton demanded angrily and the Fisherman nodded. "Good! Poison Sting, Arthur!" Again the Weedle charged the Magikarp, stabbing it in the side, with much the same effect this time. The only real difference was that this time a white light consumed the Weedle, and he flashed repeatedly, seeming to change shape.

"Kakuna?" The newly evolved Arthur said quizzically and Trent smirked. Cool, the battle was going his way.

_Time skip to about FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER!_

"Are we done yet?" Trenton asked, returning his Kakuna. He was a little bored of Arthur now and also had a feeling that the fisherman was out of Pokemon. Although he may have miscounted.

"No!" The fisherman shot back and Trenton sighed as he watched his enemy grab the final Pokeball off of his belt and tossed it into the ocean. Interesting; a change of fields. Sadly enough, Trenton only had one fish, and he didn't want to use it here, instead he would use his Cubone, Cooper. Hopefully it would work out okay, but he wasn't sure.

"Tentacool!"

"Cubone!"

The two Pokemon shot battle cries at one another and Trenton ran his fingers through his hair, wondering again if this was a good idea. Coop would be able to stay on the beach, but how did he plan on having the Pokemon attack his enemy? Jumping worked; the Cubone could hop pretty high. No other choice than to try, "Cooper, use Bone Club!"

The small Pokemon turned and ran a few steps back, then charged at the waves, leaping into the air as he got close to the edge of land. He cocked the bone behind his back as he flew downward, heading toward the enemy. When he got close enough, he slammed the bone into the jewel of the Tentacool, cracking the thing slightly before bouncing off of it to land back on the shore.

"Good job!" Trenton said as he watched the Tentacool slide backward. Harumph. The enemy probably wasn't done yet, but one more hit like that and it would be.

"Tentacool! Use Poison Sting!"

Wow. This guy really didn't know his types, did he? A Poison Sting attack wouldn't hurt Cooper at all... And it didn't Coop barely even flinched as the Tentacool whipped him with one of his tentacles.

"Bonemerang," Trent commanded and the Cubone hurled his bone at at the Tentacool, hitting it square in the jewel again. Only this time, the thing's tentacles went limp and the Fisherman recalled him, thus admitting defeat. "Can I go now?"

"Y-yes," the old man said and Trenton smiled, returning Cooper before jogging past the crestfallen old man. He hadn't really been in the mood for a battle, and that hadn't been entertaining at all. Now though, he wanted to battle a **real**trainer. He was now on the lookout for a new ENEMY.

He was also ripe for collisions.


	2. Trentgeist, Pt 2

WHIZZBANG!

Their noggins clashed. Both Vandalgeist and Trenton fell onto their backs. The hoverboarder rubbed her head, moaning. "Ow..." Trenton murmured, rubbing his head as he sat up. That had not been fun at all.

"Watch where you're standing!" Vandalgeist roared angrily. "We could have been seriously injured! Move out of the way next time."

"..." Trenton was left speechless by this girl blaming _him_for the collision. "Well you should be paying attention to what's in front of you!" he shouted, folding his arms over his chest in anger.

"Oh, really? Not blaming yourself at all for this, are you?"

"It's partly my fault, but it's also your fault!" He glared at the girl.

Vandalgeist returned the glare, for a moment. "True enough." She stood up and grabbed her hoverboard, dusting herself off with her free hand. "Good job taking responsibility for it. I guess this is my turn to introduce myself to you. I'm Vandalgeist, nice to meet you." Although judging by her tone of voice, she didn't really care.

He nodded as he stood up and brushed himself off as well. "I'm Trenton, but you can just call me 'Trent,' if you want." He shrugged and tilted his head. "Are you _sure_it's nice to meet me? You don't sound very pleased with it." He would have said her name, but he was afraid he'd mess up the pronunciation.

She would have come up with a snappy comeback ("this is just how I sound!"), but decided against it. "Yeah, you're right. We just met in a crappy way, and now I have a headache," she admitted.

"I also have a headache," he agreed, returning the smile.

"It's kind of a shame. So let's get off on the right foot, a'ight?" Vandalgeist managed a smile.

"It's probably a good idea to get off on the right foot..." Oh man, now he didn't have anything to say! Wait, yes he did. "Hey, do you have any Pokemon!" It wasn't really a shout, more of an excited question. Trenton was always excited to meet new Pokemon.

Vandalgeist flinched. "Yyyyeah, I do," she said. "You must really like Pokemon. I could show you if you want." She stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out a black-and-yellow Ultra Ball.

"That looks cool, man." Trenton had never before seen an ULTRA Ball.

"This is the high-quality stuff. You use it to catch **high-quality 'mons**." She revealed a second Poke Ball from her other pocket. It was of the standard variety. "Aaand I have this."

"Sweetness! I have _SIX_Pokemon, man. But they're all in standard balls so I guess they're standard quality?" He'd never heard about the high-quality Pokeball thing.

"I take it you want a battle?"

"Oh yes."

"Of course! My standard-quality guy goes out first." She opened that bad boy up. From the regular Poke Ball came...a Machop! The Machop landed delicately on the sand and started to flex them muscles. "This is Machi," she introduced.

"All right, cool. Let's see here..." Trenton looked at each of his Pokeballs, then back at the Machop. "I guess..." He flicked open one of the Pokeballs and out popped a Scyther. "Constantine will be a good choice here."

_Holy-!_A Scyther! Those things were hardcore. Scyther was bug- and flying-type, and it had a clear advantage against the fighting-type Machi. She was quite clearly in trouble. "Get ready for battle," Vandalgeist warned Machi, who stopped flexing and began getting really pumped. "Throw some rocks or something! It's flying-type, right?"

"Muh?" Machi looked at her strangely.

"Look under the sand?" Machi started digging through the sand with her meaty hands.

"...Scy?" Constantine had no idea what his opponent was doing, but he was finding it kind of funny the way she was digging into the sand.

"Don't just look at her!" Trenton said exasperatedly, having thought that the Scyther would know what to do on his own. "Use...Slash, I guess!" He said, and the Scyther took off at the Machop, swinging one of his arm blades at it when he got close enough.

"Stop digging! And, uh, Cross Chop!" Vandalgeist said hastily. She had meant for Cross Chop to act as an awesome, all-offense guard of sorts. Machi would break that blade right in half! Instead, Machi's choppers smashed painfully against the sharp blade, making it kind of a sucky guard. They were caught in a pushing match.

"Good job." Trenton praised his Scyther. Sure the guard had _sort_of worked in the sense that it had hurt Constantine a bit, but it had mostly hurt Machi, so Trenton considered it a great success!

Och. Bad move, but whatever. "Get some Revenge!" Heh heh. Revenge. It was a word, as well as a move. Not knowing exactly where to exert this revenge building up in her fist, Machi attempted to shatter Constantine's blade-arm-thing. Her fist started glowing with black flames, she pulled it back, and she gritted those teeth...!

"Agility, quick!" Trenton commanded, and the Scyther glowed a kind of Psychedelic pink as he sped up. Alas, it wasn't fast enough, and the Scyther took a blow to the arm-blade-thing! A few cracks appeared in the middle of it.

Machi winced, hissed, and wiggled her hand around to dull the pain. The strange black fire started to dissipate. "Don't...don't give up," Vandalgeist insisted. "Incinerate that bad boy!" Again, Machi didn't know where to aim since that Scyther was so fast, so she just aimed any old place. The Machop suddenly gained fire breath and huffed a few flames at where she _kind of figured_Constantine was. Turns out she guessed right.

"Scy!" The Scyther called out in pain, as the flamed whisked over his back. It wouldn't have hurt _as_much if it wasn't for Fire's ability to light bugs so easily. He had to do something else and quick, before he was outmatched by this Machop.

"Use...use...uh..." Vandalgeist took another thing out from her pocket: a scrap of paper labeled "MOVE LIST FOR MACHOP". She scanned the list, trying to look for anything that might be useful for this situation. Finally, she came to a good-sounding move. "Rock Slide!" she said, suddenly feeling more confident.

But again, Machi was a bit confused. There weren't any rocks around, after all. So she crouched down on the ground and started digging for rocks.

"Dangit! Isn't there a better way to use Rock Slide?" Although it was kind of what they deserved, for not practicing this stuff beforehand.

"Now's your chance, Constantine! Use Toxic, then come in with a X-Scissor attack!" Constantine was pleased with his trainer's choice and did as he asked, spitting off a purple ball of **GOO**at his enemy, then charged in after it, holding his arm blades in a dangerous X formation.

The big ball of goo landed on Machi's head, thoroughly poisoning her...and just when she'd found a good rock, too. Her skin started glowing a deep purple, to make it obvious that she was poisoned. As Constantine came in for the kill, Machi whacked Constantine with a rock.

**CRACKALACK**

That was the sound that came from the Scyther's head as it hit the rock then collapsed, fainted. Trenton frowned, having not expected to lose this battle. But there were still more Pokemon! He returned his Scyther then waited to see what happened to the Machop before making his next choice.

"Mah!" Machi said dozily, looking at the rock with a grin. That rock had given her hope. Its bludgeoning convinced her that she could carry on. So rather than collapse from the pain of poison, Machi told herself to hang in there.

'Good job, Machi!" Vandalgeist cheered. "Just don't faint!"

Now Vandalgeist was _really_putting on the pressure. Didn't she have, like, an Antidote or something? Because this Toxic stuff was really painful...

Vandalgeist seemed to ignore that. "Are you done battling? About ready to give up?" Vandalgeist said to Trenton with much overconfidence.

"Never," Trenton said, grabbing his next Pokeball. "Go, Caesar!" he said, and out came the grand Caesar the Cyndaquil.

"Quil?" it asked dumbly, looking over at Trenton, who pointed at the Machop.

"Go get 'er! Ember!" He shouted and the Cyndaquil did just that, shooting off an ember attack at the opposing Pokemon. Flecks of fire hovered through the air, nearing Machi.

"QUICK, DO-" Machi was hit square in the face, falling backward. She seemed to be knocked out. "-dge it." Vandalgeist looked down at her shoes. "This is bad news."

Well, actually, on second thought...it might have been _good_ news. See, if that type advantaged Scyther lost to Machop, then _logically_her next Pokemon would win! It's not like she had a choice, anyway. She owned no more than two Pokemon.

"Return, Machi," she said with a groan, recalling the Pokemon. "And now, my high-quality 'mon Typhoon!" She opened her other Poke Ball and let loose a Tropius, a six-foot-tall leafy menace with a banana beard. Typhoon was kind of a small dragon, though, so the extent of his menacing-ness was questionable.

Vandalgeist flipped to the other side of her paper, "MOVE LIST FOR TROPIUS". She didn't need it right then, though; she already knew Tropius kind of well. " Use Gust to fling him in the air," she commanded, and Typhoon got right to work. His leaf-wings started to stir up a little storm, kicking up sand.

The Gust attack actually did lift Caesar into the air, but Trenton wasn't worried about the Cyndaquil. He was newly rested and would be able to win this battle! Especially since his enemy was essentially a giant leaf.

"Aerial Ace! Fly past and slash him with you fragile leaf-wing!" A risky move, but it would totally work. Typhoon flapped his wings a few times, then lifted up off the ground somewhat slowly. All of a sudden, he sped up, heading for Caesar.

"Now, Caesar, use your Swift attack but enhance it with a **FLAMETHROWER!**" This was Caesar's signature maneuver, something he and Trenton had spent hours working on. The porcupine-like thing spat out the stars of Swift as Typhoon neared him, then, right after shooting the stars, covered them in the fires of his Flamethrower attack.

BURN, BABY, BURN!

A dastardly mixture of flames and stars! Just after his Aerial Ace, a leafy slice across Caesar's side, they blazed through Typhoon's wing, causing him to fall dramatically back down onto the sand. A tear came to Vandalgeist's eye.

"We can...we can still do this," she told him. "Synthesis!" The slow process of regeneration began. Typhoon's wing began to glow green and heal itself.

This battle was turning out to be harder than Trenton had expected it to be. In fact, the young man had never came this close to losing before. Caesar had taken quite a bit of damage from the Aerial Ace and would be too tired out from the Fire Swift to use anything else, at least for a few minutes.

"Just..rest a minute, Caesar." Trenton said, unable to ask much else of the Pokemon.

Good. Now they were both resting. Perfect!

But that wasn't good enough for Vandalgeist. In order to win, you had to take initiative! If Typhoon didn't get in another attack before Caesar, could she still win? "Stop using Synthesis for now," Vandalgeist demanded. With a low groan, Typhoon halted the healing process, still unable to fly.

"Bulldoze him down!" she said with renewed vigor. A wave of sand began to rise in front of Typhoon and make its way toward Caesar, moving like a tidal wave..

"Caesar, Dig down," Trenton ordered and Caesar did as he was told; albeit a little slowly. He was almost in his hidey hole before the Bulldoze attack came crashing over the place he'd picked to hide. It tagged him on the back half and he squeaked, but still had more in him.

That move, in Vandalgeist's eyes, was a complete and utter failure. The Bulldozed mass of sand collapsed in a pitiful heap. She sighed.

"Right then. Come up now!" When he heard the order, Caesar popped up out of the ground, "And now use Ember again! More power this time!" With the order from his trainer, Caesar spat out more embers in the direction of Typhoon.

When the flames came for Typhoon, she got back into action. "Gust!" she said almost reflexively. With his one good wing, Typhoon gently fanned away a small percentage of the flames. The rest of them got caught all over his wings, practically disabling all of his future flying-type moves.

"_Augh,_" Vandalgeist groaned. "Synthesis, but make it quick!" But to heal all of the damage, he couldn't have possibly healed himself any quicker. He glowed green and sat there motionless. Wasn't there something she could do? At this rate, they were done for!

She just thought of the most great, yet most terrible and stupid solution. "Sunny Day first," she said. Typhoon sighed. Using his innate magical powers to change the weather, the Tropius cleared the clouds and let the light shine right down on them. This caused Synthesis to work faster, Caesar's fire-type moves to gain power, and Vandalgeist to shield her eyes.

Sunny Day, huh? Trenton frowned. Either Vandalgeist was really smart, or she was really dumb. Or a mix of the two. _What does raising the sunlight do?_the boy thought to himself as he shielded his eyes. It didn't do much other than increase the power of his Pokemon's flame attacks, right? Well, it was time to check on Caesar's condition after that righteous Gust

The Gust attack hadn't done much, only succeeding in hitting Caesar with a few of his own flames, which didn't hurt that much. Mostly because he was made of fire! Fire was seeming to be a very helpful thing in this battle, and he'd use it again as soon as he could.

But first, Trenton had to tell him what to do. It was still his turn, right? Right.

"Caesar, use...Flame...Wheel!" Trenton said eagerly, sticking a finger out at Typhoon. "Don't let him heal all the way up!" Caesar nodded affirmatively and leaned back onto his hind legs then jumped onto his bely, offering a loud shout of _QUIL!_as he did so, spitting off a wheel of flame that rolled toward the Tropius.

The pressure of Caesar's jump caused his stomach fire to fly through his mouth? Ew. Weird. The stomach-flames spun through the air and seemed to latch onto Typhoon's head and bananas, causing worse damage than a blow to the wings would have. The Tropius went sort of limp.

"Typhoon!" Seeing her Pokemon get defeated like this almost made Vandalgeist feel sick. _There's got to be another move he can use right now,_she told herself. "This is our other last chance! Solarbeam?" She knew Solarbeam was weak against fire-types, but she also knew it charged up faster in heavy sunlight, gathering its energy from solar power. So it would do, um, something, riiiiight?

Typhoon gathered all of his remaining strength into this one last move. He raised his charred head as far as it would go, opened his mouth wide, called on all the light of the heavens... A small orb of concentrated grass-type power appeared in his gaping dragon maw. _Lame._It wasn't even a real beam.

He pitifully spat this energy ball at Caesar. It sort of tumbled through the air, slowly, like a bowling ball.

"Uh. Dodge it?" Trenton offered to Caesar, who stepped to the left of the slow moving ball, which continued to slowly move until it hit the water and created a big _BOOM._

Had they done it!

Had Trent and Caesar reigned victoriously over Vandalgeist and her so called 'HIGH-QUALITY MON'!

Well, Typhoon thought so. He collapsed.

"...I guess that means I'm down. Return," Vandalgeist recalled Typhoon into his high-quality, black-and-yellow capsule. She walked over to Trenton and told him, "Good game. I actually kind of thought I would sweep you with my team of two guys... I mean, it was close, but you still won. Eh."

Ha! Victory! This was so much more satisfying than his last victory against the fisherman type dude. He didn't want to gloat though, besides, he'd almost lost at quite a few different points in that fight! It was time for congratulations and things. Maybe a cookie for Caesar. Did Trenton have a cookie?

...No. Maybe Vandal did? "That was a great fight! I had a lot of fun, and you really gave Caesar a run for his money." Trenton smiled widely as he spoke, "So, uh, you wouldn't happen to have a cookie, would you?"

"Cookie?"

_You. Are. A freak._

"No, I don't. Go buy one somewhere."

Good grief. First he wins a match, then he expects her to pull out the snacks for him? She knew it. Everyone had a hidden motive and a greedy goal. _Trenton had a reason for starting this fight..._

"Oh, okay. I just wanted one for Caesar cuz this is his first major victory!" He smiled and knelt down then petted the Pokemon a few times before returning him to his ball. "I'll get one later, but thanks!"

Trying to cover his tracks, eh?

Well, no matter. Vandalgeist thought about ditching this weirdo for a moment, but decided there was a more interesting path to take. "So...I've taken a mission from the THA - Trainer's Help Agency - and apparently I'm a sucky Trainer. Do you wanna team up on it?"

THA? Trainer's Help Agency?

Mission? That sounded entertaining.

"Sure," Trenton said. "That sounds like a lot of fun, man."

It felt kind of strange to her, to actually get help from somebody who wanted to help. Not because of a traumatic past or anything - she was just kind of mean. "Okay," she said, taking a deep breath for some reason, "so I got this note, this is from the THA -" she handed him that fateful note, "- and I tried to go visit that North lady who sent it in. And she said, uh...yeah, go ahead. She really wants that ring back."

Trenton nodded as he scanned the note quickly, then looked back at Vandalgeist. "All right. We should be able to find this ring eventually. It's not like," as he spoke, he looked out at the sprawling city of Boatswain's Beach with its ten or twenty different amusement parks, then looked back at Vandal, "Yeah I was going to say the city isn't too big, but I don't like to lie."

"Well, it's gotta be somewhere around the _beach_-"

Then she realized it. This place was called Boatswain's _Beach_. In order to find the ring, they might have had to go running all around this whole city-sized beach. Too...much.

Her blank expression twisted into one of fear.

"Exactly! The whole city is _technically_ a beach. So I think we should probably go to the Pokemon Center and heal up your 'Mons just in case we get into a fight!" Trent was thinking ahead, so as to ensure that in case they _did_get into a big fight, they were both ready to lump some heads.

Lumping heads is fun man.

"You know what? That...is a very good idea." Vandalgeist rediscovered her hoverboard and tucked it under her arm. "I'll avoid riding on _this thing_, to make sure you can keep up. Plus...I don't know where the Pokemon Center is."

"I know where the Pokemon Center is!" Trenton said, then began walking.

* * *

IMAGES OF LIFE  
(supplemental images with no bearing on the story whatsoever. i'm sorry for how hard they are to access - this website doesn't make it easy. like, at all. it's a...really bad system, actually.

first, add img + (#) to the beginning, then a period, then imageshack, then add "png" to the end. the number to go after "img" will be inserted to the left of whatever picture i put up.)

(96) .us/img96/9919/request20 - North Winde opens the door

(684) .us/img684/3646/geist3 - Vandalgeist has a message

(824) .us/img824/6070/geist1 - Then Vandalgeist surfs away

(641) .us/img641/6903/request21 - eventually leading to a climactic battle which definitely went something like this


	3. Trentgeist, Pt 3

OKAY SO AFTER SOME WALKING, THEY ARRIVE AT THE CENTER

Vandalgeist huffed and sat down in one of the Pokemon Center's many comfortable chairs. Her Pokemon: completely healed. A few stupid magazines lay scattered on a nearby coffee table.

"Hey man," Trenton said, "What's wrong?" He glanced down at some of the stupid magazines.

"Nothing," she said. "I just...this mission...it seems kind of hard suddenly."

"That's naysaying. Trust me, we'll do positively fine. Finding stuff is easy."

"I don't think we know where to look. At least _I_don't. This is a big freakin' place! Should we just drop it or something?"

He made a face and shook his head, "Never give up! We should go look at one of the amusement parks. It's obviously going to be there or something."

_Obviously?_He wasn't thinking hard enough about this. They were never going to find this ring!

...Waaaaait. She never really found out what that ring looked like. Maybe with some eyewitness accounts, they could recreate the ring or something! Would that actually work? And would North ever let her back into that apartment to give her that ring description? And what would she do when she discovered - _if_she discovered - it was a fake? Would that stand in the way of true love! Truly their situation was hopeless.

"Uh...we could, uh..._try_," Vandalgeist concluded with a shrug.

"Cool. Let's go then!" Secretly, Trenton had picked the Amusement parks because he had never been to one and rather wanted to check it out. He wouldn't tell Vandalgeist this, because he figured that she'd get upset over it or something. Hopefully, they'd run into more people to fight as they explored.

_Hopefully._

High time they left, anyway, Vandalgeist figured. Looking around at the orderly freaks sitting around the Pokemon Center made her feel odd and uncomfortable. Boatswain's Beach wasn't her place.

"Okay," she said, standing up and grabbing the hoverboard. "I know where the amusement park is this time, so you don't have to lead."

"Okay, cool. Don't go too fast, I guess." He left the Pokemon Center and looked around. There were quite a few different amusement parks here, weren't there? "We're going to that one," he said, pointing to the one with a giant roller coaster. "Just so we both know and don't go to the wrong one."

Now that she was actually paying attention, theme parks were seemingly everywhere in this place. Giant Ferris wheels towered over the beach, each probably sporting its own theme park, too. And the roller coasters? It looked like everyone was trying to compete for their attention. "Oh yeah, that one," she said. "Uh...knew it."

"Right. It looks cool, so let's go there!" He started off in the direction of the massive roller coaster. He'd try to ride it before they left the place, cuz he'd never had a chance to ride a roller coaster before, but it seemed like something everyone should do at least once! So yeah.

They came to a large, wooden arch. It was the entrance to the theme park, "_Kingdom of Awesome_"! The Kingdom was a large, sprawling area in the left of the town of Boatswain's beach. It had, per usual for amusement parks, a Ferris wheel and some roller coasters, but there was one thing this place had that most amusement parks lack: GIANT WATERSLIDES.

A lonely man sat in the ticket booth up front. He looked half asleep. Vandalgeist knocked on the glass panel in front of him. No response. She whapped it with the blunt edge of her hoverboard. _That_woke him up, the lazy freak. "H-hello?" he said with a start.

Vandalgeist looked over the price listings for tickets. She could afford tickets for both of them, but...did she_want_to?

"Here, I'll pay." Trenton said, reaching into his pocket for his wallet which was stuffed with things. It wasn't all money, there was a bunch of pictures and stuff too.

_Oh!_So she didn't even have to ask. Trenton was a sucker anyway, Vandalgeist thought.

He pulled out some cash and supplied the man behind the counter with da paper. "Two tickets please."

He hoped that the guy would be very efficient with his job and they'd be in a few seconds, but there was also a chance that he wouldn't be very good at snatching tickets and they'd be TRAPPED IN THE TICKET BOOTH.

"Uhhh..." The man snatched his cash and pushed out a couple of tickets. "Here you go," he said, and then his head flew down onto the counter again.

Vandalgeist looked at Trenton with an expression that seemed to convey "...".

"...What." Trenton frowned. How was this man still getting paid? "Get up, fool!" He rapped on the glass as well after handing Vandalgeist her ticket. "This ain't no time for sleepin', there's a fire!" There wasn't really a fire, but Trenton just didn't like to see people asleep on the job.

If he'd had time, he would have let Caesar out to make a little smoke to make his urgent shouts a little more believable. But hey, who wasn't going to wake up when a fire was declared?

"What?" He was waking up again, gradually.

Vandalgeist smashed her shoe against the glass and started smacking the booth with her hoverboard. "**WAKE! UP!**" she shouted, joining in the fun.

"FIRE!" Trenton yelled.

"What! Call the fire department! Call the mayor! DO SOMETHING!"

Trenton snorted and shook his head, "Don't sleep-"

The ticket booth guy was asleep again already.

"I give up!"

The hoverboard had already put cracks in the glass...Vandalgeist decided it wasn't a good idea to actually break it. Although if any of that glass got into the ticket booth guy's skin, he would _definitely_look alive.

"We've...got our tickets, so let's go in," she said. "We don't need to see _him_any more."

"Yeah, let's go." Trenton said, walking into the amusement park. He was instantly assaulted by this tune and the sounds of many loud children. And then, out of nowhere, came Quacky the Psyduck; this amusement park's mascot.

"Psy! Hi kids! I'm Quacky the Psyduck!"

"..." was Trenton's only response.

Quacky, and all other theme park mascots, horrified Vandalgeist deep down. The fact that they were all just men trapped in terrifying costumes unsettled her just a tad. Clowns? No problem. But _this_...these things were just _shoddy_.

"Hyucka-hyuk! A hyucka-hyuk!" Quacky the Psyduck closed in on her, arms spread as far apart as possible. Vandalgeist stepped on his big floppy foot. "_Yeowch!_Don't be mean, little one!" Quacky waggled his big meaty finger, one bigger than any real Psyduck's, and backed off. Vandalgeist was content.

"Ha. Up five, Vandal." Trenton said to the girl, holding his hand up for a high five as Quacky waddled off to attack the next sorry group that walked in.

_"Hey, kids! Give Quacky a BIIG HUUUUUG! Hyucka-hyuk!"_

**"EEEEEEEEEE!"**

She gave him a slow, shaky high five. Those poor, innocent kids. What had they done wrong! ...Oh well. Time to leave this god-forsaken section of the park!

"Uh...would you like a hug?" Trenton offered to Vandalgeist, noticing that she seemed a little shaky.

A hug from someone who wasn't trapped in a horrific suit? She shrugged and hugged.

He hugged back, then released her after a few minutes of SOPPY EMBRACEMENT, then walked off, trying to decide where they should go next. "Want some cotton candy or something?"

"Nah," she said, trying to calm down. _Oh god...was that a man in a Ratatta suit over there?_ She turned away. "Not hungry." _You know what?_The thing she needed right now was a ride on that hoverboard. She'd been lugging it around this time, but hardly ever riding it! Why not? She set it on the ground and stepped on. The hoverboard responded immediately, revving up and raising them a few inches off the ground.

"Uh, okay. You can ride that, and I'll go...play a game or something!" Trenton said, looking around at all the various games and such that they had around here.

"No, I can follow you," she said hastily.

"Okay then. Well, I want to go on that roller coaster." He pointed, then started to walk off. He made sure to take the path that was _least_infested by costumed guys, having a feeling that Vandal didn't like them.

Even considering the great lengths Trenton had gone to in order to preserve The Geist's sanity, there was still a new man-in-a-costume around every corner. She started biting her fingernails and trying to look down at the ground just ahead of her.

"Are you okay, dude?" Trenton asked, watching his friend bite her fingernails off. "That's, uh, not good for you." Huh. Trent was using the word 'uh' a lot lately. That wasn't a good thing at all.

"What? It's just gonna grow back." _Nip nip nip._ "And I'm fine. Just have to beat them up like I did Quacky..."_Bite bite bite._

"Do you want to go somewhere else? I mean, like, I don't mind. We probably won't find the ring here," he admitted, shrugging.

"Then why did we even-"

In response, he pointed to the roller coaster. "You know you want to ride that."

Just who did he think he was talking to? When you have a hoverboard, you don't need-

No, actually, she wanted to ride that thing. Lamer version of a hoverboard, maybe, but that didn't mean she would _refuse_to ride.

"Okay, whatever. We'll take a break and ride that. Then I guess we could go buy a different ring. They'll never know the difference." _Nick nick nick._

"Sounds like a plan." He slipped into the line for the ride. Surprisingly enough, the line was pretty short, really. You'd think it'd be long, since this was clearly the best attraction at the park. It was the line to what was perhaps the grandest roller coaster of all..."Za Beesto".

"Step right up to the greatest coaster you've ever seen!" a more enthusiastic man invited. He was standing at the front of the line, behind a little wooden counter with the coaster's logo on the front. Next to him was a closed gate, the only boundary standing between them and Za Beesto.

Vandalgeist stepped off of her hoverboard again. "This looks pretty cool," she said. She took a quick look over the line, in case any _mascots_were coming along for the ride.

Absolutely no mascots were planning on riding Za Beesto.

_Nip nip nip nip nip._

Pretty soon, they were seated together in the front seat and the ride started. It sent them down the first hill and the LIFT started, slowly pulling them up to the highest point of the ride, which was one hundred and fifty feet in the air. Then came the first descent. It started out small, and a few passengers lurched and shrieked, but this coaster was just getting started. Za Beesto then took them almost straight down, so that wind tore past them and got their adrenaline racing.

After that first drop came the loop. THe loop was a massive inversion, and it pinned them to the ride's seats with the force of a hundred G's! Okay, it was really only about ten G's, but still. It felt pretty strange and Trenton couldn't help but yell! After all, in the front seat, the G-force was even more...feel-able.

But Vandalgeist...she felt like she was having the time of her life! Especially since the coaster was mildly more safe than a hoverboard, with all these harnesses. She still felt lighter than air.

The coaster went into another loop, which hurled them up, down and sideways. The twists and turns...it felt just like flying...! Of course, everyone else was screaming, which ruined the experience somewhat. But still...!

Soon enough, the relatively short ride pulled into the stopping place and the restraints released.

"Please get off my ride," a voice ringed throughout the building and Trenton shrugged and slipped out of the chair. "Let's go then, I guess."

It was only then that Vandalgeist realized the roller coaster cars were decorated with Psyduck heads._Quacky._That was it. Worst ride ever.

"Come again!" that guy announced, closing the gate. "But not right now. Give everyone else a chance at Za Beesto!"

People left in various states. Some were laughing excitedly; some were throwing up into trash cans. Vandalgeist just kind of looked the same. She was eager to get back on the hoverboard, a device which came without screaming and Quacky heads.

"Onward to the ring shop, I guess!" Trenton declared heroically and then he started to walk off again, leaving the amusement park.

"Wait, so we're not playing anything else here? I don't..." She spotted Mickey Ratatta on the horizon. "Yeah, good idea." She sailed next to Trenton, suddenly determined to escape the park.

Soon enough, they'd left the place and were looking around for their next area, which just so happened to be the Boatswain's Mall.

The mall was big, and wasn't _actually_called 'Boatswain's Mall.' No, the sign declared it to be the 'Treasure Trove Mall,' with a few other, smaller signs declaring it to be home to a 'Pirate's Booty of savings'. Not that Trenton was really there for savings. Unless he could get savings on a ring. Then he might be interested in it.

As they entered the mall, Trenton looked around at all the various signs and stores, most of which seemed to be following a theme of piracy. They passed by "Matey's," a hip clothing store for teens, "Cap'N's," a somewhat-fancy restaurant, and "Davey Jones Foot Locker," among other stores, and various booths. "Oh. There's a jewelry store," he said, pointing to 'Me Hearties.' "Guess we're heading there?"

"Of course!" Vandalgeist agreed. "Oh, but I don't think I have enough money to pay for a fancy ring. " After Vandalgeist spoke, Trenton made a face that expressed discontent. He didn't have that kind of money either. Well, they were at a mall. There had to be some way that they could get the money!

"Step right up and join the game! It's timeeeeeeeee to rumble in the jungle, have a Thrilla in Manilla! Come and see if **YOU**can be the top dog in the bog!" A man with a megaphone standing in the center of the mall shouted, gaining the attention of quite a few innocent by-standers. "Prepare to be aware of our latest rookie Pokemon battling tournament!"

"I think there's fighting going on over there, Trenton. I know how much you like fighting. ...Pokemon fighting."

"Oh. A tournament! Sure, let's join in." Without waiting for a response, Trenton grabbed Vandal's wrist and dragged her along with him and looked up at megaphone guy. "Hi, we'd like to register for the tournament."

"Lucky you! It's a double battle thing and teams are _ace_ptable." Megaphone guy responded, still using his megaphone.

"Uhm. Okay." Trenton said, then scribbled his name and Vandal's name down on the list. Yep. She was in the battle with him now, whether she wanted to be or not.

Megaphone guy grabbed a large, old-fashioned, psychedelic camera and snapped a picture of the two. Trenton's half-smiling, half-bewildered face and Vandalgeist's bland, slightly menacing face popped up on a giant JUMBOTRON on a wall on the eastern side of the mall, and then got tossed into a TOURNAMENT bracket.

"What's your team name?" Megaphone guy demanded and Trenton looked desperately at Vandalgeist, having no idea what to answer.

"Uh...Team...uh, Team...Team, uh...North Wind?" That North Winde girl was still hanging out in the back of Vandalgeist's mind. She turned to Trenton and shrugged. "That or Team Geist."

"Definitely North Wind in that case."

"WELCOME TEAM NORTH WIND TO THE SPECTACULAR THAT IS THE ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOKIE POKEMON ROYAL RUMBLEEEEEEEEEE!"


	4. Trentgeist, Pt 4

A few more spectators gathered around - or maybe they were fellow contestants? Vandalgeist made sure to try and give some of them the evil eye. Most of those people recognized her face from the ugly Jumbotron picture hanging right above her, and they all gave her and Trenton odd looks. She suddenly felt worse about herself. "Here are the rules," the megaphone man continued, "in case you haven't heard. The game this time around: capture the flag! Your Pokemon will be pitted against each other in a BATTLE ROYALE in an attempt to grab the flag! The team who has the blue flag when I call TIME - and that means the _real_flag - will win~!"

_Yes, mister man,_ Vandalgeist thought, biting her lip, _but_what is the prize?

"The winners will receive a Pokemon of their choice from our Wall of 'Mons!" A few people in the audience cheered and clapped as he gestured toward a corkboard with various Pokemon pictures on it. "You want it, you win it, we bring it to you!"

Vandalgeist examined the various pictures pinned to it. They were kind of far off, but she was pretty sure she saw something she liked. Trenton also looked at the wall and nodded, deciding that he too saw some cool stuff. Cool stuff.

"I suspect everyone's here?"

"Shouldn't you know that?" Trenton asked. "You're the one in charge after all." That got the couple even more strange looks.

"Sometimes competitors just walk around the mall! We...can't just fence them in," Megaphone guy said. "ANYWAY! I'll just automatically assume that YOU'RE AAAAALL READY FOR THIS BEAT-DOOOOOWN! The battlezone will be opened!" The battlezone? Oh, hey. Now that he mentioned it...there was a huge fighting area a few feet behind him, which must have been shielded with plexiglass up to the ceiling. A few doors lined the arena, all of them locked. Spectators seats framed parts of the battlezone.

_Awesome!_Vandalgeist thought.

"Oh this is cool," Trenton said, then looked around the arena at their enemies. Simona Carrone...Jeddy Swift. Wow, these people had some crazy names, man. He knew all these names because of the massivechart which had just replaced their faces on the Jumbotron. Yep, that was pretty much what had happened.

Sadly, it was impossible to judge a Trainer's power level just by looking at them. Some of them just looked like average folks...or at least looked as average as a Trainer could look. One of them was balding. Another one had a massive nose. They were a strange bunch, but Trenton and Vandalgeist were going to win this competition and the prize of a Pokemon from that board over there!

'Team number one!" the megaphone guy said, opening one of the doors to the arena. Number one...? That was a dumb name. At least Trenton and Vandal's team name was a lot better and creative. But 'Team NumberOne' was a little overly cocky. Oh well, they'd win and then rub it in 'Team NumberOne's' face. team consisted of the balding guy (Caillou Brown) and a tall, red-haired guy (Brook Starr). They silently slid into a booth, and the door closed behind them.

"Team Collision Course X!" A confident-looking duo arrived. One of them (Von Paint) had a fancy teenage twirly mustache and beret. The other (Big Ardagne) wasn't very big, or "Ardagne". She was just a semi-average-looking person. They walked along the side of the arena until the reached a second door, and went in.

"Team Blue Angel!"This team was made up of Simona Carrone and Jeddy Swift. Simona seemed like an attention hog, winking at everyone and stuff. Jeddy looked like a green-haired, big-nosed mad scientist. Their door was opposite of Team NumberOne's, meaning they had a long walk ahead of them..

"And last but not least, Team North Wind!" Trenton and Vandalgeist stepped out of the crowd and entered their own predictably-placed door. Inside there was one big metal desk with four red buttons, two microphones and two strange collars on top, two uncomfortable plastic chairs, an intercom in the upper right-hand corner, and a small, close-able slot in the front. The whole booth was made of that plexiglass stuff, ensuring that they would get to see all the action and not get hurt.

_Looks kind of complicated..._Vandalgeist thought. The first thing she did was plop her hoverboard on the ground, grab a chair and sit down. Trenton sat down in one of the chairs and shifted a bit, annoyed by the fact that they were very PLASTIC and UNCOMFORTABLE. Not that he would complain though. This was going to be a new experience for him. He'd never played capture the flag with Pokemon before.

"I guess we need to hear the rules from Mr. Megaphone Guy now, huh?" he said to his friend, then looked back out the plexiglass thing in front of them.

"Are you with me, everyone?" that guy said through the intercom. The music played. "Here are some additional things I need to point out! Those collars can be placed on your Pokemon if you wish to give them commands during the battle. Just speak into the mic with the corresponding number on it to talk to your Pokemon! However, due to the nature of the slot, which will be opened so that you may release your Pokemon from their Poke Balls without having to step out of the booth, your Pokemon will have to put the collar on itself. Kind of a bad design, right? BUT ANYWAY!

"In addition, the buttons each correspond to either another booth, or me, your very own Megaphone Guy! They will allow you to communicate with another booth (or me). So if you have any complaints or wishes to get out of the booth (which is currently locked from the inside) please contact me via the button labeled 'HELP'!" That last part made Vandalgeist feel a little paranoid. Oh well!

From some underground platform in the middle of the arena, a tall flagpole was slowly raised. "The battle is about to begin!" Megaphone Guy continued. "Everyone, send out your Pokemon at this time!"

Vandalgeist was still kind of confused, but hey, time to send out something through, uh, that slot. She decided on Typhoon for this one - flying was probably a good advantage. First, however, she had to toss the _collar_outside. She didn't really know how it worked, but if the announcer guy told her to, she'd do it. She opened the Ultra Ball, letting a Tropius out into the fray. All she had to do to get him to put the collar on was whisper "put that collar on" through the slot-thing. Typhoon awkwardly swung the collar around his neck, which clicked shut.

Right then. Pokemon choosing time.

They had no idea what they were fighting, but Trenton sort of had an idea that Caesar and Typhoon could do together. So the Cyndaquil was released onto the battlefield. Typhoon looked him over with a huff.

Six other Pokemon started to appear. They were a bit far off, so Trenton and Vandalgeist could only see their general shapes. A couple were obvious, like Magnemite and Gastly.

"Typhoon, do you read me?" Vandalgeist said, talking into the microphone labeled 'A'. "When the Megaphone Guy says 'go', you get that flag. Just get it." She saw Typhoon nod.

Caesar wiggled himself into his collar and jumped when it snapped behind his neck. What was the purpose of this sorcery? He turned and looked back at his trainer behind the Plexiglass and nearly fell down when Trenton's voice sounded off in his ear.

"Okay, Caesar. He's the plan. Crawl up on Typhoon's back and burn things as he flies around and stuff!"Vandalgeist turned to Trenton. Then she held up her hand for a high five. Trenton slapped high five with the girl as Caesar scrambled up on top of the Tropius' back.

"IIIIIISSS EVERYONE READYYYYYY?" the intercom roared.

"Yeah," Vandalgeist said instinctively. Then she felt kind of dumb.

"On your mark, get set...GO!"

Finally, the dawn of a new battle. An age of reckoning. They could already see their enemies charging toward the flag. Vandalgeist stared ahead.

"Uh, hey, yo. They aren't gonna move till you tell 'em too, cuz Typhoon is your Pokemon, not mine."

_Right..._ Caesar in particular was probably getting antsy. Vandalgeist leaned in close to the microphone and said, "_Get that flag already!_" Typhoon complied. He flapped his wings and flew gracefully toward the flag at a speed that was actually kind of slow and lumbering. Vandalgeist sighed.

Before they even reached the center of the arena, the flag was already taken! A Wartortle had snagged the flagpole in his mouth and started to Rapid Spin away. "Try to go towards that turtle?" she suggested. He had the flag, anyway, and he was probably spinning a little towards them, or something. It was a bit hard to see from so far off.

"Yeah," Trenton agreed, "And uh. Use your Flame Wheel attack at things too, Caesar! But only bad things that are trying to attack you guys." He nodded, deciding that his plan made _absolute_perfect sense! He hadn't said things too many times at all.

Their Pokemon totally got all of that. Joining them at the tail end of the spinning Wartortle shell was that Magnemite, who was generating electricity around itself. It discharged this energy as a far-reaching Thunderbolt, giving Wartortle a lethal jolt. The Rapid Spin ceased, and Wartortle was splayed out on the floor, out cold for the time being. There was both a metallic opponent with a collar around one magnet to roast _and_a flag to catch!

Typhoon landed on the ground, taking a stance in front of Wartortle. He snatched the flag up with his mouth, and Magnemite started charging up another electric blast.

Nope not happening. Caesar's orders were to burn bad things that were trying to hurt them, and that Magnemite was trying to do just that! "Quil!" He huffed as he shot off a Flame Wheel at the Magnemite from his friend's back. He burned that steel-type all over, causing Magnemite to back off in order to try and recoup, or maybe just fall over and faint or something. Whatever the case, the flag was theirs!

The tile began to shake and tear apart. When they tore the ground beneath Typhoon's feet, he rose into the air, being a flying-type. The move was Earthquake, and it was ravaging the entire field! The source: probably a ground-type. The Trainers' vision of the field was even more obstructed. _Such bad construction..._

"Shoot," Vandalgeist faux-cursed. She grabbed Typhoon's microphone. "Stay up high and attack something?" As good a plan as any. She looked over the big red buttons, which they probably could've used to sic some mad taunts on their opponents! Vandalgeist lightly tapped the button labeled "COLLISION COURSE X".

_"...just attacking wildly!"_

Some weirdo's voice erupted from the intercom. Who what why?

_"Well,"_ a fancy man's voice replied, _"we'll just have to counter them with **strategy**, I suppose!"_

What the. "Oh this is brilliant. Who came up with this stupid design?" He frowned, looking around to see if there was a way to tell if anyone was listening in on them.

_"Shushushushushush!"_someone - probably Big Ardagne - whispered harshly. Collision Course X went dead silent.

_Uhhhhhh. Do I have any paper on me?_Trenton wondered, then reached into his pocket and grabbed the one thing that was in there. A container that had at one point held French Fries. Oh well, it would work for a while. He took out a pen from his other pocket and opened up the Fry container so that he could get at the white part of it and then wrote:

_Oi. Let's write strategy on this thing, and scream insults at all of our opponents via the intercom. Till we run out of space, that is._

He handed her the container and the pen. Vandalgeist nodded, putting on her serious-business face. She located a few of perhaps several hundred speaker-holes decorating the side of the button-table and shouted right into it. "HEY, YOU. YOU GUYS. YOU GUYS **SUCK** AND ARE GOING TO **LOSE**DUE TO YOUR LIBERAL USE OF ACTUAL STRATEGY. DO YOU HEAR ME, YOU DUMB GUYS!"

"Ah, Vandal. We don't need to yell that loud, pal. Trust me."

_"Don't scream!"_ came the squeaky, high pitched voice of the fancy man before. _"We can hear you just fine, you ignoramus!"_

"Ha." Trenton snorted, looking at the intercom. "Shut up, Mustachio."

_"My mustache is not that big!"_

Vandalgeist hammered her arm onto three buttons and screamed, _**"YOU ALL SUCK!"**_Heh heh! Belittling others was so much fun.

_"If we say nothing, they'll stop,"_some unfamiliar male voice said.

"No we won't. You're **DUMB** if you think we'll stop just because you're being **DUMB** and not responding to us calling you **DUMB**!" Trenton replied to the unfamiliar male voice.

_"Would you be quiet!"_came the voice that Trenton had dubbed 'Mustachio.'

"No can do, cap'n. I don't have the power."

_"It's gonna be a long battle..."_

"THIS IS A COMMAND STRAIGHT FROM THE MOTHERSHIP NORTH WIND," Vandalgeist screeched into Typhoon's microphone. "RAZOR LEAF ANYONE AND **EVERY**ONE YOU SEE!"

"Except for your Cyndaquil buddy!" Trenton added hurriedly. "Speaking of which. BURN MORE STUFF."

Looking back out onto the Earthquake-changed battlefield, Typhoon and Caesars' positions were still safe. The only problem she really noticed was that Gastly was fast approaching, looping through the air and eventually arriving by their Pokemons' collective side.

_"You idiots! You have to use strategy to win at this crap!"_ Big Ardagne replied. _"Put them to sleep!"_

"Gaah!" Gastly wailed with a crazy grin on his face. He stared into Typhoon's eyes, trying to convince him that he was getting sleepy. Typhoon responded with a quick Razor Leaf to the face, knocking Gastly back a bit and interrupting the attack...but by that point he was drowsy enough to start falling back down to the ground, taking Caesar along.

"Augh!" Trenton said, quickly searching his mind for something that would be logical to do here. Some kind of **STRATEGY**, "Augh! Caesar, leap off of Typhoon's head and bash that Gastly in the face with a brutal**FLAME CHARGE!**" He commanded and Caesar did as he was told, flying at the Gastly as a little ball of flame. With...quite the charge. Caesar barreled into Gastly's face, carrying all three of them down to the ground...!

Luckily for Trenton and Vandalgeist, Caesar had balance. He landed precariously on his feet, then spun to get back to the flag and protect it, but something was already grabbing it. A vine! It must have been from that Grotle that had joined the battle! Burn it!

Caesar spat an Ember at the vine, and did what he'd wanted to do; burn it...but he also burned the flag up.

"Dangit Caesar!"

_"Who's the idiot now?"_Mustachio demanded.

"Shut up!"

_"**MU**HUHUHU,"_Big Ardagne chortled.

"GRR," Vandalgeist hissed back. "Don't forget your Gastly is DEAD." On the other hand, the game was...probably over. "Dangit Trenton! You made the game end."

"But uh. The battlefield isn''t going away, so I don't think it's over yet..." Trenton frowned, watching as the Pokemon continued to duke it out inside the dome. "Maybe Megaphone Guy has a second flag?"

Sure enough, another little platform in the center of the arena arrived with a near-identical blue flag. It poked out from underneath the ripped-up tile. "Haw!" Vandalgeist yelped. "IT WAS OUR PLAN THE WHOLE TIME. THE CUSSING AND ALL OF IT. WHO'S THE IDIOT NOW, HUH, YOU COLLISION COURSE X **PUNKS?**"

_"No it wasn't!"_Mustachio protested.

"STUFF IT, MUSTACHIO." Trenton snapped at the thing.

Vandalgeist stared at him for a second. "...STUFF IT," she added. Then they really, truly realized it...their mutual dislike for Von Paint.

Trenton held his hand up for a high five. Vandalgeist was happy to oblige.

They said together, "STUFF IIIIIIT."

Meanwhile, in the heat of battle, the new defender of the flag had arisen...! Now the flag was technically in the possession of a Wobbuffet, who seemed to be wibbling and wobbling against enemy attacks. Not even Grotle's seemingly endless vines, which had burrowed their way through the quaky cracking floor and weaseled their way around Wobbuffet, could slap it into submission! Wobbuffet continued to wiggle, just like a punching bag. As that was going on, a Slakoth - the final competitor Pokemon - glanced over at Caesar and his sleeping friend Typhoon, two potential targets.

"Urgh. Caesar, don't let them get too close to you guys! Use, uh, uh..." Trenton had forgotten his Pokemon's moves again. "_USE HEADBUTT!_" he commanded, sticking a finger out dramatically, despite the Cyndaquil not being able to see his motions.

"Headbutt?" Vandalgeist said. "You should get a move list."

Okay then. Headbutting things was different, but Caesar was open to new things. So he ran toward the Slakoth and rammed it with his snout.

_"Protect!"_the unfamiliar male voice said at the last moment. Sadly for him, his command came in too late, or maybe Slakoth was just too slow. Either way, the sloth-thing flew into a slab of jagged tile and took some good damage.

"Hey! Wake up already," Vandalgeist said into the microphone, but Typhoon wouldn't obey. He sat comfortably on the ground, sleeping calmly. "_Tch!_Thanks for protecting Typhoon, Trent."

"Yep, no problem. Here, let me try something. Go poke Typhoon in the face!"

_"'Poking' is not a Pokemon move!"_Mustachio yelled at him in that scratchy, high pitched voice.

"YES I KNOW, SHUT UP." Trenton yelled back as he watched his Pokemon go and poked Typhoon cautiously in the face. He stretched and flopped over onto his stomach. And while that was happening, Slakoth was slowly, very slowly, getting back into action. Oh boy this was not good. Caesar had to think for himself now, and figure out someway to wake his giant friend up. Perhaps...biting him? Well, what was there to lose.

Caesar bit the Tropius on the snout; a bit easier than he would have if the Pokemon had been an enemy.

"TROPE!" Typhoon squealed, waking up. He looked at Caesar and simply huffed again. Time for him to get back into the fray... The Tropius stood up again and vomited a couple of Razor Leaves from his Swiss army mouth of grass-type tricks. They sliced at Slakoth, but in the end, didn't do very much damage.

A sudden object hit Typhoon in the back of the head. It was the shell of that Wartortle! Typhoon seemed like he was about to go out cold a second time, but regained his composure. The Rapid Spinner, hurt but not completely out of the brawl, magically flew toward Caesar and went for a leg sweep.

Ooh! That had to hurt Typhoon, Caesar thought as the Wartortle came flying at him. Unfortunately for the Cyndaquil, he didn't see it until the last second and could barely do anything but curl up into a ball. An improvised Defense Curl, that is. The Wartortle bounced off and landed a few feet away, now caught between Typhoon and Caesar.

_"Whirlpool!"_yet another unfamiliar voice said. Wartortle gave his opponents a cocky grin, put one clawed hand to the ground, and summoned a huge vortex of powerful water. Caesar stared at the vortex, but didn't know what he was supposed to do. He needed Trenton's guidance and Trenton wasn't responding.

"Uh! Quick Attack to dodge, Caesar!" Trenton ordered and Caesar did as he asked, diving over to the side, using the move to speed him up. Water was deadly.

Unlike Caesar, Typhoon was caught in the middle of attack, but he dug his feet into the ground and withstood the blow. That and his grass-type resistance to water made the attack lose its punch, even though Typhoon was still stuck inside. "Magical Leaf!" Vandalgeist fiercely commanded. Three sharp, rainbow-colored leaves shot out from inside the whirlpool and hit Wartortle. Now he was sustaining some serious damage.

_"Shoot. Aqua Jet on Caesar!"_Wartortle withdrew into his shell, covered himself in water and flew through the air, swerving around the whirlpool.

"Hey, Typhoon! Go _do_something!" But the whirlpool was really starting to restrict his movements, and he resorted to protecting himself form the blow instead. And that stupidsauce Slakoth was lumbering ever closer!

Yes, well. There was no **good** plan here, so Trenton just sucked it up and commanded the first semi-sane thing that came to his mind. A Wild Charge was the correct move to do here. It would still hurt Caesar, probably moreso than usual because there _was_an Aqua Jet attack he'd have to charge through, but it would still take that Wartortle out of commission.

Hopefully.

"WILD CHARGE!"

Caesar, now with an aura of electricity around him, charged wildly into the Aqua Jet attack. Even though the water still hurt him, the electricity around him helped, and he burst through to Wartortle's shell. He ended up headbutting the tough shell - yeowch.

_"Hey Caillou, Wartortle's on his last limbs,"_Brook of Team Number one said. Vandalgeist smiled, knowing that it was their team taking the turtle down.

"Quillll..." The woozy Cyndaquil was rocked from the remnants of the Wild Charge and stumbled back to Typhoon, needing a little bit of cover as he recharged from his ultimate attack, being a wee bit tired out. But hey, the attack had rocked Wartortle, so he didn't really care now. The Wartortle was laying on the ground with a dent in his shell, charred all over with cartoony burn marks. The Whirlpool started to disappear, simply fading away, and Typhoon got himself back together.

"Okay, Typhoon. Let Caesar on your back," said Vandalgeist. She tried to think of which Pokemon were still in the running, and realized that every team was still in the running even though three Pokemon - Wartortle, Gastly and Magnemite - were most likely out. Every team but theirs had only one player in the running. And who knew what Grotle and Wobbuffet were doing? Slakoth was lumbering ever closer to them - he was almost in range! _Oh no!_

Caesar was quick to scramble onto the back of Typhoon, ready to get away from the fighting. It wasn't that he didn't want to fight, he just needed more time to recover before he could do anything. Hopefully, once Typhoon was flying about again, they'd be able to burn people and obtain the flag again. First came that, then victory.

This time it sounded like Simona Carrone was talking. "Stop and use, uhh, Ice Beam," she said.

As Typhoon rose higher into the air, Slakoth started sluggishly charging up an attack. A ball of light blue energy generated between his hands turned into a beam of iciness! But unfortunately, it missed. Slakoth fell on the ground and went to sleep, slacking off.

"Well that was _lame_," Vandalgeist spat. "**THAT WAS LAME, YOU GUYS. BLUE ANGEL SUCKS.**"

"_Oh, you be quiet. You couldn't do any better if you had a Pokemon with Slack Off as its ability either!_" Simona retorted.

"Typhoon, forget about the sloth and keep going towards the fla-ag!"

Vandalgeist hastily scribbled a comment on the all-important strategy paper. "go on and defeat slakoth if you want i dont really care", it said.

"Okay, sure." Trenton scribble onto the paper in response, then spoke aloud again, "Go ahead and burn more evil stuff," he said to Caesar, who happily obliged, Flamethrowin' down at the sloth, who was singed up and knocked even _more_unconscious than he already was by the attack.

"Okay, what's left?" Trent asked Vandalgeist, turning to look at his friend. He figured that they more or less had this battle won, so it was just a matter of who was left to beat up. And stuff.

Typhoon soared over the arena and found the last two contenders duking it out...but between them, the winner was clear. Using a thick web of vines from cracks all over the arena, all stemming from his back, Grotle had immobilized Wobbuffet, the defender of the flag. Another vine popped up and grabbed the flag.

"Dang," said Geist. "Has that thing been using those vines the whole time?"

"I uh, think so." Trenton confided to the Geist, staring out at the battle. "I could probably have Caesar try and burn them. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. CAESAR, USE THE FIRE!"

The little Pokemon obliged and spat little flames at some of the various vines. Ember attacks were small, and worked just as well as the big ones! At least when they were involved with leaves and grass, right?

A few of the vines were burned, and it looked like Grotle felt it. He definitely looked weak from all of that vine-using. Wobbuffet's "corpse" plopped onto the ground, and some of Grotle's vines retracted.

"_Put all of your energy into this!_" a guy from Team Number One yelled. "_Stone Edge them!_"

A sharp pillar of mall tile flew up into the air and passed by Typhoon...but it skewered Caesar!

Ack. Stone Edge was a dangerous attack, but luckily for the valiant Caesar, it hadn't _really_skewered him. It had more poked him really hard and sent him flying off of the back of his companion and into...one of the Grotle's vines! Trenton bit his lip as he watched then, "Okay, uh. Uh." He was too late. The vines had tightened around Caesar and were now waving him about wildly. Typhoon was about to swoop in and help, until...

**CRASH.**

Caesar was smashed into the wall of the mall, and suddenly surrounded in a brilliant white light.

"Eh?" Trenton said, staring blankly out at the battlefield.

"_How come this twerp's Pokemon gets to evolve and ours don't?_" Mustachio demanded.

"Stuff it!" Trenton snapped.

Back on the battlefield, the newly evolved Caesar...erupted. Literally. Flames started to rip from under the ground, covering the vines of the Grotle and the Grotle himself. The Grass Pokemon fainted and Caesar ran to the flag, gripping it in his mouth. Typhoon landed gracefully on the ground nearby.

Vandalgeist looked over at Trenton with a knowing smile. As in...she knew that they had won.

"VICTORY IS OURS!" Trenton declared.

* * *

Grand Gallery of Battle B'Images

(somehow i JUST NOW noticed that the same number in the front of the url is also inside of it. OH WELL! _**ZING**_!)

(89) .us/img89/3706/donthate - Caillou Brown (it wasn't made by me)

(692) .us/img692/9187/request22 - Simona Carrone

(839) .us/img839/3057/request23kurtiss - Jeddy Swift

(269) .us/img269/827/request24 - Big Ardagne (why didn't I make a Von Paint picture?)

(217) .us/img217/8281/request30 - I guess this is Brook Starr

(12) .us/img12/8254/request27 - Caesar and Tropius meet again

(685) .us/img685/4213/request28 - Caesar kills a ************, and Typhoon watches with sadistic glee

(718) .us/img718/6552/request29 - Von Paint and Big Ardagne go mad in the torture chamber


	5. Trentgeist, Pt 5

"THE WINNER, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IS TEAM NORTH WIND!" Megaphone Guy hollered. The booths in which competitors sat and strategized slowly collapsed, and they were able to walk out onto the battlefield to reclaim their Pokemon.

"I guess we did it!" Vandalgeist said. "Those guys had nothing on us." She whipped out her hoverboard and slowly cruised into the heart of the arena, over various sharp edges and demolished panels. Typhoon and Caesar were in the center, after all. Trenton jogged after Vandalgeist to the middle of the arena and patted Caesar on the head. The Quilava looked up and grinned at his trainer as Trent took the collar off.

"Awesome job, bro." He returned the Pokemon, then looked at Vandalgeist. "Methinks it's time we go claim our prize."

"Yeah, just about." She patted Typhoon on the back heartily, then looked over at the collar he was still wearing. "Guess we can take this crap off. Maybe we could keep it, even."

"PLEASE DO NOT KEEP THE COLLAR," the collar said, starting to beep like a time bomb.

"Holy crap, no!" Vandalgeist hurled the collar away in a random direction. A far-off explosion was heard, quickly followed but the sound of Caesar's collar's explosion.

The other participants of the tournament started to congregate in the middle, meeting up with them. Von Paint and big Ardagne looked pretty STEAMED, but the others were quicker to congratulate them. "Good job out there!" Jeddy Swift told them. "That was my Magnemite. I know I was quiet the whole time, but I just didn't want to complement you during the heat of battle, y'know? Because, like, stuff."

"Oh, thanks," Vandalgeist dismissed. _Trying to get on our good side or something, I guess._

Other congratulations followed. "Good job getting around my Slakoth!" "And I thought Wartortle would be unbeatable! I guess YOU were number one after all! HAW HAW!"

"You're too kind," said the Geist.

"Yes, you're _far_ too kind," Trenton said suspiciously, staring at all the competitors that they had defeated.

Lastly, there was Brook Starr. "Hey, I'm not here to talk about that great battle between my Grotle and your guys," he said, "I just noticed something about your team name. Just a hunch, but...you didn't name it after a person, did you?"

"Uh..." Vandalgeist nodded. "Yes, we did. Are you North's boyfriend? Because I'm her friend. I got a message a while back about you two getting together, and I've heard _so much_ about you!"

"Really?" said Brook. "We broke up months ago. You say you just now found me. And as much as North talked about her stupid friends, I doubt she said anything about you."

Vandalgeist bit her lip.

"Besides, North was...crazy and I never _really_ liked her." Brook shrugged. "She was just...there! Ya know what I mean?"

"You don't seem like a very nice person," Trenton decided, glaring at Brook.

"Your point being?"

"Look, man, just tell me what ring she thought would be just perfect for a proposal," Vandalgeist said, suddenly holding a notepad.

"She was going to propose to me? Yuck. Anyway, it was probably something dumb. And red. I don't really care either. I would have never agreed to marry _that_ thing."

"Thank you. Rrred..."

"Hey. Be nice. I'm sure North is a very nice lady." Trenton said.

"No she was, and is, CRAZY." With that, Trenton really couldn't handle it anymore and slugged Brook in the FACE, which made Brook fall backwards, Trenton having effectively TAKEN HIM OUT.

"Hmm," Vandalgeist said with a sigh. "I just met North earlier today. She wasn't crazy, just a little dumb. Maybe a bit mean, too. But still..." She shrugged. "Come on. Let's leave Brook's corpse to rot for now. Dang...there must be some way to complete the mission..."

"Er, uh, sorry." Trenton said, shaking his head. "I just kind of lost it. And obviously, to complete the mission, we just have to go and buy a bunch of red rings. And stuff. It'll be easy, for serious."

"just what I was thinking."

Trenton and Vandalgeist escaped the indoor arena and went back to the corkboard. "Can we have our prizes now?"

"ABSOLUTELY! PICK SOMETHING FROM THE WALL OF 'MONS!" Megaphone Guy screamed in response, his megaphone amplifying his voice tenfold.

"HEY BUDDY. WE ARE. RIGHT. HERE. MEGAPHONE IS NOT NECESSARY." Trenton yelled, cupping his hands to amplify _his_ voice.

"BUT IT IS SO MUCH FUNS!" Megaphone Guy's megaphone said.

"Whatever." Trenton sighed, shaking his head. Gosh, Boatswain's Beach was full of freaks man. He stepped forward, toward the wall and snatched a picture off of the corkboard. "I'll take this one then."

"MEMBER TRENTON OF TEAM NORTH WIND IS GOING TO TAKE A KIRLIA! WHAT WILL THE GEIST TAKE? CAN YOU FEEL THE SUSPENSE FOLKS?"

"No one is even watching anymore!" It was true; everyone was gone except them, the winners. Woo.

"I know what I'm getting," said Vandalgeist. "The weird-looking yellow thing. Yoink." She snatched a picture off the wall, ripping it out haphazardly. "Whoops. Well. Do we get our prizes now?"

"AND GEIST TAKES A SHINY CHARMANDER! THE SUSPENSE CLEARS AND EXCITEMENT MOUNTS!" A hatch in the floor opened. A mysterious person's hand tossed two Poke Balls on the floor. Then it went back in. Creepish!

"Which one's which? Neither of them are weirdly-colored or high-quality." Vandalgeist kicked one of them a little.

"That's it for today's match, folks! TUNE IN NEXT MONTH FOR ANOTHER BATTLE ROYALE - **CHAMPION'S CUP!**"

Vandalgeist clapped. "_Woo._ Let's go." She picked up both of the things and surfed through the mall.

Trenton walked after Vandal, wanting to get his Pokeball, "So, uh, where are we going next? I still don't know the area very well, so, uh. _Yeah_."

"We're buying a red ring," Vandalgeist said. "I'm already getting a plan in my head. I'm still not sure if it'll work...it's kind of risky."

"Why don't you explain the plan then? Since if I'm gonna help, I'll need to, you know, know the plan. It helps a little bit." He grinned. This was fun, _and_ he'd gotten a free Pokemon out of it. Not that he had much use for a Kirlia. But hey, he could find something to do with it, right? Right.

"Mm. I was kind of hoping to make it a dramatic secret, but if you insist. We get the numbers of both North and Brook, first of all. Then we send them both a message to come down to the beach. We'll dress up as angels and perform some divine intervention, say they were made for each other, and give Brook the ring. Oh, and also we'll say that Trenton and Vandalgeist called angels down from heaven." Vandalgeist took a deep breath. "What do you think?"

"Well, I see one problem with that. How exactly do we fly? You know, when we're doing the whole 'divine intervention' thing. Actually, I might have an idea for that! So your plan sounds great. Absolutely magnificent. We should do fine."

Vandalgeist slapped her hands. "Great." From the corner of her eye, she took a gander at "Gold Dubloons", one of the nearby jewelry shops. "I think that's the shop we'll need to go to."

"Well, don't you want to hear my plan? To get us flying and stuff," Trenton asked as they walked to the great "Gold Dubloons." "Aren't the store names here awesome?"

"Too piratelicious. Alright, I'll hear it. My plan was just to get some string and tie it to Typhoon. You have a flying-type?"

"Well no. My plan was to have our new Kirlia lift us up with Psychic and stuff. I thought it was great, but I guess Typhoon with strings would work fine too..."

"You know what would be _really_ cool? _Angels on hoverboards._"

"While that would indeed be pretty dang cool, you only have one hoverboard and if we used hoverboards, then they'd probably know it was us. Because how many other people in Licentia have hoverboards? They aren't exactly a big thing as far as I know."

"But that would be so COOL..." Finally they arrived at the jewelry shop. "Here it is. You take the left, I'll take the right, and when you find a red ring you go get me, okay? I don't have much money, so you're paying._So-rry._"

"Gold Dubloons" was excessive in its pirate-tude. It was littered with tacky treasure chests full of grab-n-go bracelets and overuse of the Jolly Roger. Nobody else was shopping there.

"Kay then." Trenton stepped off to the right side and began to walk down the aisle, searching for a red ring.Vandalgeist started burrowing through a treasure chest, haphazardly tossing necklaces and studs on the ground. Gosh, what a stupid way to show off your merchandise!

Just when she had lost hope, a ring completely coated in garish red appeared in front of her face.

"Is _this_ the ring you've been looking for?" the person holding it said.

Vandalgeist looked over her shoulder. It was a boy around her age dressed in a big blue hat and matching long coat with a purple shirt underneath. He was also wearing a bulky green backpack.

"Yeah, that's it, I guess. Thanks. You're not saying this because you're going to buy it before we can, right?"

"N-" Vandalgeist had already snatched the ring out from his hand. "-o."

"Good. Stalker. When did you even get in here? Do you work here?"

"I'm no ordinary human."

"Sure. You can just wait here while I go buy this." Vandalgeist walked over toward Trenton. "Hey, I found the ring! Get out your wallet!"

"Okay then," Trenton said, pulling out his wallet. "Let's buy the thingy then." He took it from her and went to the counter where he nonchalantly tossed it to the cashier.

"That will be...thirteen hundred Pokedollars."

"That is a lot for a cheesy ring."

"We're a tourist town."

Trenton grumbled and tossed some money on the counter then took the ring and offered it to Vandalgeist. "There. What now?"

"We've got the ring, so now we just get into North's apartment! Then we can move on to phase two. Or three. Three phases, right?"

"I hear you two have a plan involving divine intervention," the ring-guy said.

"Shut up."

"But I've been sent here to help you!"

"No. You've just been listening in on our conversation. Shut up."

"If you want North and Brook to get back together, you need my help, though...I'm an angel sent from heaven to help you four out!"

"_No. Shut up._"

"But..." He frowned. Then he looked over at Trenton.

"Well, uh, I'm not particularly keen on getting North and Brook back together, mostly because Brook is a terribly mean guy, but we have to do it to complete the mission **and** it's going to be really hard to do it without any help, so I think we should just let him help out, 'Geist. Even if he is crazy and thinks he's an angel. So uh. Yeah. Let's just let him come with, Vandal. If he turns out to be really dumb, I'll let you hit him with your hoverboard!"

"Mmmm..." Vandalgeist looked over at the angel guy. "Ehhh..." She shrugged. "Yeah sure whatever, if you say so. Just don't be dumb, or I'll hit you with my hoverboard."

"Thank you," he said with a quick nod.

"_Whatever._ We're gonna go break into North's apartment to steal her and Brooks' phone numbers. Wanna help?"

"Sure."

"Awesome. Totally legit. Let's roll." He started to walk, stuffing his wallet back into this pocket. He wanted this to go by faster so that he could back to fighting stuff. Fights were nice.

"I'll lead the way," said Vandalgeist. "You just follow, uh..."

"Sylvestris," the angel guy said.

"Sylvestris yeah sure." She leaped on her hoverboard and started cruising. She cruised through the mall...down the street...and then took a turn out into the beach of Boatswain's Beach, maybe to appreciate the view. Trenton followed after them, not really minding being in the back. If there was any action though, he'd be the first one to push and shove to the front. That was just the way he was.

Unfortunately for Trenton, there would be no action, at least not this trip. "So where does she live? I have a feeling this could end up being a very boring walk. I hate walking. We should just fly there."

"You can take your flying Pokemon," Vandalgeist said. "I'll take my flying HOVERBOARD. And Sylvestris can fly, I guess. You have wings, right?"

"I-"

"Right. Follow me, then! I know her address!" Vandalgeist, using the highest technical capabilities hoverboards had to offer, mentally activated the hoverboard's super-intense high-flying no-holds-barred mode. The hoverboard started flying through the air like crazy. Sylvestris just kind of stared at her and rubbed behind his ear a little.

"You can't fly, can you?" Trenton asked, shaking his head. "I don't have flying Pokemon either."

Two large, brown wings exploded out from the sides of Sylvestris' backpack. "Good luck catching up to us, man," he said with a shrug. The wings that were apparently his started flapping, and he took off after her.

"Pffft. Didn't say I didn't have a plan." He dropped a Pokeball and out popped a Mudkip. "Right then. Curtis! Freeze some of the water!" The Mudkip did as he was told and Trenton handed him some rope. "Here, hold this." Again, the Mudkip did as he was told and Trenton got into the water, standing on the ice cube.

"Okay, now swim really, really fast."

Curtis, having never had a chance to show off to Trenton before, swam _really, really_ fast, almost ripping Trenton-who was holding onto the other side of the rope-off of his makeshift surfboard. This way, Trenton was able to keep up with his flight-blessed companions.

Also, this was way more fun.

Vandalgeist turned into the more urban section of Boatswain's Beach, now heading directly toward North's home. She scrawled her name all over the top floors of buildings with her always-handy, always-full spray can, and still managed to keep track of her surroundings somewhat. "We're getting close," she hollered to whoever was trailing her. "I put some graffiti on the door so it would be easy to fiiiind!"

Vandalgeist made a swift landing by the door marked "NORTH WINDE" and saw Sylvestris landing behind her. "Pssh," she said. "You have a Pokemon in your backpack."

"I...I don't." The wings folded back up into the bag, and slits fell down over the holes they left.

"Yes."

"No."

She looked down the street. "Is Trenton coming anytime soon?" Sylvestris shrugged. Vandalgeist started tapping her foot.


	6. Trentgeist, Pt 6

Trenton showed up shortly after that, Curtis back in his ball. and his rope back in his backpack. That had been pretty fun. "_Pssssh,_" Vandalgeist repeated harshly. "You people cheat. Well, whatever. We're here to perform a break-in. Last time I came here the door was open, so it's probably still unlocked this time." She fumbled with the doorknob a bit, and the door popped open. "Success. Now we just force her door open!"

Trenton shrugged, "That should be relatively easy. Right? If worst comes to worst, we can just kick it down. Now _that_shouldn't be too hard." He stepped into the house and looked around. "I don't think there's anyone here. But uh, where are we supposed to get the numbers from? There might be an address book around here. Right? I dunno man."

"Well, I've already been in North's apartment, so I know which one it is. We'll just hope she either has a home phone, or left her cell phone at home again." Vandalgeist started walking up the stairs. Sylvestris shrugged and followed.

Trenton followed after the other two, going toward North's door, which he grabbed the handle of and twisted, sighing when it was shut. He then turned to look at his two companions, "Hey, do either of you have a hair pin?"

"I always keep one in my pocket for just such an occasion," Vandalgeist said with a smile. She dug through her pocket and pulled out a bobby pin, and it got tossed over to Trenton. Trenton caught the thing and turned to the door, sliding it into the keyhole and wiggling it around for a half a minute before a click sounded off, and he pulled the pin out, turning the knob again-pushing the door open with ease this time.

"Ta da."

Vandalgeist started clapping. She didn't think Trenton was an expert lock-picker!

"Why are you applauding?" Sylvestris said. "If there's anyone inside, they probably heard you."

"What if there isn't anyone inside?"

"Gr."

Vandalgeist poked her head into the apartment. It looked about the same as it did earlier, of course. "This isn't a bad place," Trenton observed. "A little boring for my tastes, but not **bad**place. So, I guess we're looking for a phone book now?" He walked into the apartment, looking both ways before shrugging and turning back to his partners in crime.

"Hey, guys, there's no one here."

"Good," said Sylvestris. "Now we'll have to find the home phone, or that book."

Vandalgeist started doing some paltry searching. She tossed her hoverboard onto the sofa and picked up a few pieces of paper on the table. When her few-second search yielded nothing, she said, "Where's the phone, anyway?"

"I have no idea, but it shouldn't be too hard to find. It's probably hidden somewhere we just can't see yet. Actually, that's a dumb thing to say. Who would hide a _phone_of all things?" Trenton began to search throughout the house, looking for a phone of some sort.

After about twenty minutes of looking, he had found the answer to his question. North would hide a phone.

Throughout those twenty minutes, Vandalgeist gave up. She decided to be a total mean person and steal some of North's lemonade as she lounged on the couch. A rude person among rude people!

Meanwhile, Sylvestris was still on the hunt, though he wasn't very enthusiastic about it. He seemed to derive some pleasure from digging through North's papers and journals. Kind of disturbing, actually. Was Trenton the only one actually looking for North's phone? Suddenly, inspiration struck Trenton and he pulled out his cellular device, calling up the manager of the apartment complex. "Yes, can you patch me through to apartment 6B?" He waited a minute, and a phone started ringing in the apartment. It seemed to be coming from **the couch.**"Vandal," Trent called, "Check under the cushions."

Vandalgeist made a sour, irritated face. _How stupid **is** North! She **deserves** this idiot boyfriend!_ With that in mind, she slid off the couch, dug under the cushions, and found, along with a vast collection of coins and dust, the phone! It was indeed a home phone, and it looked like it would _normally_be put on some sort of stand, but nope. North was just a dumb.

Vandalgeist answered the phone. "Hello, this is the Geist speaking."

"Sup." Trenton said into the phone, and within a few seconds, his voice wafted out of the phone that Vandalgeist was holding. "There, we found it." He hung up, the went over to the Geist and took the phone from her, flipping through the numbers. He added a couple to his phone, then put it down.

"Okay, get some more snacks or whatever else. It's time to go." The two little kleptomaniacs left with piles of journals and snack foods. North's door slammed behind them, and they all went down to the ground level.

"Now, since we've got everyone's numbers," Vandalgeist said, "we can do a bit of plan stuff." She thought it over for a moment. "I guess "Angel" Sylvestris should call them up. But not yet, since they might not be home?" She shrugged and opened a bag of chips.

"Sure, the Angel can call 'em. And we should probably wait a bit, yeah." He reached a hand into the bag of chips and took out a handful, beginning to eat it. "Hopefully we won't, ya know, mess this up. It still sounds pretty risky. Even _if_we have a good way to fly, it still might be dangerous! Ya know, with my Kirlia and all that."

"Your Kirlia?" Then Vandalgeist remembered. "Oh yeah! The whole reason we competed in the Battle Royale! I still haven't let out my Charmander thingy."

"What do I say?" Sylvestris asked, starting to latch onto Trenton's phone.

"Say something about being an angel sent from heaven to reunite this destined couple. Tell them to meet at Boatswain's Beach at sunset. Yeah. That sounds pretty romantic. We'll plan the rest later."

"Oh yeah, got it."

"Don't mess up either. We've only got one shot at this, so make sure they **want**to come. And, ya know. Stuff." He shrugged, then sat down and ate another chip. This would be easy. At least, he hoped it would be easy. Trenton was probably wrong though. He was wrong a lot.

Sylvestris snatched Trenton's phone, put all of his North stuff down, and went through the numbers. He came across North's number, selected it, and waited.

Someone picked up. _"Hello? WHo is this and why do you have my phone?"_

Sylvestris started to worry. "Uhh...this is an angel from heaven..."

_"Get out of my house!"_

"I've been sent from heaven to reunite you and Brook, your true love..."

_"I'm calling the police. And I'm going straight home, right now."_

"Brook is going to the beach at sunset, so if you could be there, right on the coast -" North hung up. Sylvestris shrugged. "_I_think it went pretty well."

"I think you have failed us, man." Trenton stood up and patted Sylvestris on the back, "Oh well. Call up Brook now, I guess. Hopefully he'll be a bit more accepting. I doubt it though, he really seemed to not like North. At all. I had to punch him in the face, it was so bad." He shrugged, biting off a chunk of a candy bar he'd taken from North's place.

Sylvestris put in the second and final number. "...Hello?" The person on the other end immediately hung up. So Sylvestris tried again. "Hello, I'm -" He hung up. Sylvestris tried again. "I'm not -" He hung up. Sylvestris tried again. "North is -" He hung up. Sylvestris tried again. "HELLO, THIS IS AN ANGEL SENT FROM HEAVEN TO REUNITE YOU AND YOUR LOVE. YOU WILL GO TO THE BEACH AT SUNSET. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING. GOD BLESS."

Trenton began to laugh as he retrieved his phone from Sylvestris. "Good job." He shook his head and pocketed the device, then turned to look at Vandalgeist. "Is there anymore planning we need to do? I guess we have until sunset before we can actually, ya know, move on with the plan." He shrugged.

"Sunset is the most romantic part of the day," Vandalgeist insisted. "It's all red and stuff."

"Until then, we have snacks," Sylvestris said, stealing a chip bag.

Vandalgeist lazily crammed chips into her mouth. "Shouldn't we go outside or something? Away from the apartment that North is going back to with the police?"

"I guess so." Trenton said, standing up. "We could go hit up another amusement park. That was fun." He looked up at the sun.

"I think we have some daylight left to burn?"

Vandalgeist looked out at the sky. It was still daytime, even after all of that park and battle royale stuff. "We sure do. Coming along, Sylvestris?"

The angel kid collected his Northbooks. "I'll stay with you until the mission is done."

"I assume that's good. And Trent, we're not going to the same exact amusement park, right?"

Trenton shook his head, figuring that Vandalgeist didn't want to go to the same park simply because of the mascots, which were people she seemed to not like very much at all. "No, we can go to a different one. Besides, I think we already did all the fun stuff at the one. Between riding on rollercoasters and punching people dressed like Psyducks." He grinned, then looked at Vandalgeist and Sylvestris.

"Either of you have any idea of a cool place to go?"

"Not at all," Vandalgeist admitted.

"Wherever you want," Sylvestris said blandly.

"Wow really? Uhm, okay then. Let's just. I don't know, I really didn't have much of a plan. We can just go pick one at random, I guess. Hopefully not one with a sleepy ticket guy. Sleepy ticket guys can be rather annoying, from my experience with them." He nodded as if he knew everything, then started to walk. "I hear that the Xtreeemly Acshuny Park is is pretty...extreme. Let's just go there."

"Extreme," Sylvestris said with a false sense of excitement in his voice. He was either a bland person, or a bad actor. Vandalgeist decided she liked extremity and 'streme-tude, so she followed along. They walked and they walked, and eventually arrived at the second amusement park.

"Okay," said Trenton, "This place looks like it might be better than the other one I guess. I mean, there's still no line to the ticket booth... but I just have a feeling! Just a little feeling."

Yes...again, somewhat eerily, there was absolutely no one else lining up to enter the park.

"Maybe everyone's just lining up at a better park," Sylvestris guessed.

"If that's the case, we'll have the whole park to ourselves," Vandalgeist said, villainously rubbing her hands together. In the process, she dropped all of her chip bags. "Aw hell. I can't just carry this free food around!"

"Is there a hotel room we could put them in?"

"It might be kind of romantic if we put all of our stuff in Brook's room...somehow. But we don't have time for that! Right now, we just have to experience the park!"

"That sounds hard. It'd take a lot of work to break into _another_room, 'specially if it's a hotel room. Those are a lot more heavily guarded, ya know." He nodded affirmatively, then walked up to the ticket booth guy, waving. "Hi, we'd like three tickets to the park, please."

The guy in the booth looked like a stereotypical teenager, and he also looked "out of it". And by that I mean he was taking typical teenager drugs. "Duuuuude," he said, "you want tickets?"

"Yes we do," said Vandalgeist, ready to hit something with her hoverboard.

"Duuude, hang tight, now." He slid a few candy bar wrappers down the counter to them.

"No. We don't like those."

"Those are not tickets." Trenton said, frowning. "We don't want your stupid candy bar wrappers we want_tickets._so we can go into the park and do things." He tapped the glass with his knuckles feverishly.

"Hurry up."

"You got your tickets now, dog." He put a few more candy bar wrappers on the table. "Take 'em, kids."

"Even though we don't like them, I'll take them." Vandalgeist took the wrappers and tossed them on the ground.

"Yeah. Seeya, kidses. Have a good time, right."

"Okay, maybe we don't need tickets. Let's just go in, I guess." Trenton shrugged and walked toward the entrance of the park, waiting for someone to try and stop him to see his ticket. To his surprise, no one did and he managed to walk into the park. "Yeah, we don't need tickets."

"What a crappy park," Vandalgeist immediately concluded.

And yes, the park itself looked crappy too. It was about as empty as a ghost town, and had no sense of wonder or excitement in it. The paint was worn; everything looked dusty; hardly anyone was working in it. The place was almost nightmarish. It might have been an awesome place for edgy, hip young people to hang out, though, as long as they didn't mind smoking and drinking in an abandoned wasteland of a theme park.

Trenton nodded his agreement. "Yeah this place...sucks. Maybe there's a less sucky part of the park on, like, the other side of it or something? I don't know." He shrugged, then began to look around again. "We might as well go check it out. Maybe some of the rids are cool."

"It's worth a look," Sylvestris said.

"This park would be the perfect place to battle," Vandalgeist said, fiddling around with her hoverboard anxiously. "Even if the park's rides don't work, we could mess around on them and get ourselves injured. Is that a plan?"

"...okay, sure. We can do that, but let's try not to get **too**injured. After all, we do still have a mission to do today!"

"Right," Vandalgeist said with a yawn. She started to approach a run-down prize grabber machine with her hoverboard in hand, ready to smash it open.

Then she heard someone's footsteps. Someone else was in the park! Vandalgeist decided to slide behind the prize grabber, looking out from behind it. Sylvestris stood dumbly in the middle of the road. An angry blond-haired woman was walking down the path, only focused on the road. "_I swear, when I get back I'll..._"

_Oh, sh- That's North,_ Vandalgeist immediately thought. _Just hope she got Sylvestris' message._

Trenton ducked behind one of the old games, peeking over the counter to see who it was that had appeared. Oh, awesome it was North. At least _that_part of their plan had worked out fairly well. For now, he had to be silent and watch as North likely beat the crud out of Sylvestris, who was standing in front of the road like an idiot.

North stopped in front of Sylvestris. He gulped. "And who are you!"

Vandalgeist poked her head out and put a finger over her lips. "Shhhhh," she moaned loudly.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, I'm in a hurry..."

Sylvestris started to open his mouth, the better to say "excuse me" with. "_Sh!_"

North whirled around. "What was that?"

"Oh, that's nothing -" Sylvestris shut his mouth.

North gasped. "You're...you're..."

Vandalgeist facepalmed and ducked down again. Sylvestris looked down at his feet in shame. "I've been caught," he said. Trenton groaned as he realized that Sylvestris was about to rat them out. They should have never agreed to work with the goody-goody two shoes angel in the first place.

North looked down at his feet, too. "I'm sure I've heard your voice before..." Her expression brightened. "I'm sure it wasn't you I heard on the phone, though, right?"

"Y-y-y-no, ma'am." Trenton breathed a soft sigh of relief, glad that Sylvestris got his wits about him before he made a **big**mistake here.

"No need to call me "ma'am", you poor little homeless child!" She put a hand on his shoulder and sighed. "I just came here to look around...I didn't imagine I'd find somebody actually _living_here in such strange clothes. The wild, drug-taking teenagers must have given it to you..."

"But _I'm_a teenager, and..."

"You can just sit tight while I head home." North looked up at the sky and gasped. "It's getting late. I have to go now. You take care." She rushed away, right out of Xtreeemly Acshuny Park.

_is it me,_ Vandalgeist wondered, _or does she just get dumber and dumber every time I learn something about her?_

Trenton stood up to his feet after he was sure that North was out of sight and stepped out from behind the thing that he had been hiding behind. "Oh man, oh man. That was almost a bad thing. Almost a really bad thing. Anyway, I guess it's time to get down to the beach and execute a most brilliant of plans." Oh yes, Trenton had loads of faith in their plan, now that he figured the hard part was over, the rest was pretty much downhill from here.

The only challenge left in his mind was getting himself and Vandalgeist up into the air.

"Did I do badly?" Sylvestris asked. "Sorry."

"Crap," Vandalgeist said with a stuffed animal in her hand. It was a torn-up red rabbit, probably, but since it was torn up, it was hard to tell for sure. "I hope she doesn't actually think about this very smartly. And I hope you can reflect upon your actions or something, angel."

"I will, ma'am."

"When did you start calling people "ma'am" and "sir"?"

"Just recently. I thought it would be more...polite and angel-like."

_**"Psssssh."**_Trenton shook his head after Vandalgeist made her 'Pssssh' sound, agreeing completely with her that Sylvestris was being silly.

"Whatever man. Let's go do our thing. We only got one shot at this, and we, uh...yeah we didn't practice at all. Betcha we mess it up completely and end up in a fight against them. Not that a fight is a bad idea. I love me some fights."

"Naw. We're not gonna mess it up!" Vandalgeist assured. "North's gonna totally believe everything we say, and Brook will remmeber why he started going out with her! Then they'll be so smitten and awestruck, they'll _have_to give us something in return."

"I could go in first," Sylvestris said bashfully.

"Fine, and I guess it does make sense. I could be the Boardin' Angel, if we have to have _everyone_show up. We could even be like those Christmas Carol ghosts. I'll be Rockin' Future."

"...I could be the Present. I'd even talk in rhymes. That's what the music is like now-a-days." Trenton grinned. "Yeah, let's do a music gimmick!"

"_That_sounds romantic!"

"I will be Archaic Past," Sylvestris said, giving in.

"Sweet. I think I'll need some kind of disguise, though. Something easily store-bought. And since I don't have any money on hand, I _basically_have to mooch off of one of you guys!"

"Sounds like a good plan. ...Wait...who's buying?"

"I dunno. Trent's got money." She stared over at him.

"What? Yeah, sure I've got plenty of money. I can buy the outfits, sure. I've got...tons of money. So yeah, let's do this thing. Off to Boatswain's mall!" He turned on his heel and began to walk, heading toward the mall with his companions. "Does everyone know what what you're going to dress up like?"

"I don't believe I have to dress up or anything. I'm an angel either way."

"No you're not," Vandalgeist said hastily. "Anyway, I'm going to dress up as the **most awesome angel_EEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEER._**Probably, like, one with only one wing. Then I'll be on a hoverboard. Frikkin'' sweet."

"Yeah, uh-huh. I think I'll dress up like a gangster angel, so I can, ya know, look the part of Rappin' Present." Trenton nodded affirmatively. He was very certain that his plan would be the most amazing plan that anyone had heard of ever, and didn't think that either Vandal or Sylvestris would deny it.

If they decided to disagree with his plan, he would simply remind them who was picking up the tab on this little trip.

"Awesome. I hope we can find this in a pirate-themed place...my costume's looking pretty intense in my head." Trenton nodded, thinking about what he would have his costume look like. He wasn't exactly sure what a **gangster**angel would look like, but he figured that he'd think of something before they had to make their final decisions.

"Yeah. It might be a bit hard to find all the stuff we need in a pirate place. But we must find it!"

"You sure there isn't any other shop around here?"

"You could dress up as a _pirate_angel," Sylvestris suggested. Trent sighed, shaking his head. And this guy said he was an angel?

"Come on now, man. There's no such thing as pirate angels, so you can't _dress_ up as one! It makes no sense to dress up as something that _doesn't exist!_" He waved his arms randomly, hoping to provide emphasis to his words.

"Believe me, Trenton. Pirate angels are just as real as gangster angels."

"Do _you_know any better places to shop, Sylvestris?" Vandalgeist asked. "You do live here, right?"

"N-"

"**Yes.**"

"But I wouldn't kn-"

"**_Yes,_ you would.**"

"There's a great costume shop just down the street from here," he admitted shyly. Vandalgeist patted him on the back.

"Good, let's go." Trenton said, then began to walk off toward the costume shop.

* * *

A Little More Stupid Art

(201) .us/img201/8885/27505021 - This is totally what's gonna go down

(16) .us/img16/4427/request33 - Here's Sylvestris, the new character?

(810) .us/img810/7064/request34 - Sylvestris, who is highly skilled at animal cruelty, even more so than you mortal Trainers


	7. Trentgeist, Pt 7

The three of them left "Crazy Jack's Costume Emporium", a dark and shady place full of Halloween-worthy costumes. Some of these crazy costumes were shown in the windows up front on live people paid to stand there and look pretty in their nurse outfits and chicken suits. It was disturbing, especially for the unsuspecting visitor who leans on the glass.

But enough about that! Their shopping had gone swimmingly! Everyone got pretty much exactly what they wanted. Archaic Past got exactly nothing; the Rappin' Present guy looked like a gangster, but an angel. He even had the bowler hat;and Rockin' Future looked like the final boss of some stupid video game.

"So disappointed with you," said Vandalgeist in her big-zippered, belts-hanging-off-the-sleeves longcoat. "I mean, you're not even a cool gangster. You're some old-timey mafia man. You're just missing a twirly mustache."

"I am so a cool gangster. The mafia is way better than the gangs of today. Way better, man." He grunted and looked forward. "Besides, Tommy guns are way better than the stupid guns that people use now a days. Like Uzis. Tommy Guns are way cooler than Uzis. So there." Trenton huffed and fixed his trenchcoat.

Deep down, her representation of a Rappin' Present was more like this guy. Vandalgeist shook her head._What quaint notions,_ she thought. _He's missing out on the wave of the future. ...Hey, how is that the present, anyway?_

"Well, I think we're about ready." She looked up into the sky. It was kind of yellowish...rainbow spectrum-ish. Well, it was going to be sunset soon, anyhow. Vandalgeist stepped onto her hoverboard. "About time to go down to that beach."

"Yeah, let's go," Trenton agreed. "We have things to do and stuff to see." He nodded and began to walk, heading off toward the beach. He wanted to see how well this would work out, but he still had a suspicious feeling that this would end with a fight of some sort. After all, hadn't most of their plans so far ended in fights?

However, Vandalgeist wasn't looking for a fight this time. She just wanted to get this all over with in an overly cool fashion. Using her hoverboard, she took to the skies and flew off. Sylvestris shrugged and took off after her.

Within about twenty minutes, they'd arrived at the beach, and Trenton watched as Brook stood there, by himself, waiting for North to appear. Trenton was ready to get on with the flying, but decided that it would be better to wait until after Brook and North had a chance to speak about things.

After all, maybe they would work it out alone, without the outside interference of Trenton and Vandalgeist and their Angel friend.

The other two kids landed behind a railing and watched this thing go down. They weren't close enough to be within earshot, but at least they could see two silhouettes posing in front of a beautiful reddening sky.

The shape of a lady went running down the street, panting. In the middle of her tangle with burglary and the police, she had suddenly remembered what her phone call was about: love. And she decided this was her last chance to rekindle the fire between them. She stopped in front of Brook, the sun between them like the fire of their hearts, and she began to talk.

_"Brook!"_ she cried. _"You must have been called by an angel!"_

Oh boy. Brook was back where he'd started the year. With his crazy girlfriend North, and he didn't know what to do, or what to say. But he had to think fast so she didn't think that he had become unable to talk in the short time that they'd been away from one another. _"I was called by an angel to come see you, my love!"_

Off-screen somewhere where he could hear the two lovebirds, Trenton gagged.

_"Ohh, Brook! I knew there was still something between us! Why did you ever leave me? I was going to propose to you on that day at the beach!"_ Trenton gagged again as he watched, looking around for Vandageist. He just wanted some sort of a motion that they were to begin flying and things. Then he would begin the flying and the things.

It was suddenly time for Brook to think fast again._ "I wasn't ready to make such a commitment, my dear North!"_

Trenton wanted to jump and call bullshit.

Vandalgeist looked at Sylvestris, then Trenton, who was looking uniquely offended. She shook her head no, as in no, no jumping out yet, and she hoped Trent would pick up on that.

_"Oh, Brook, why would you ever deny our love?"_ North cried, becoming increasingly bowlegged and probably ready to cry over their relationship. Trenton, in classic Trenton fashion, was still very much upset with the two people in the center of the beach.

Brook seized North's hand in his, staring into her eyes. He didn't have anything left to say and was hoping that the gazing and the smiling would make it so that speaking was unnecessary. And it was at that point that Vandalgeist tapped Sylvestris on the shoulder and gestured toward the loveboids.

Right in front of their eyes, an angel descended. There were big brown wings sprouting from his back, and in front of the sunlight like this, he looked like he even had a halo. North took one look at him and burst into tears, falling onto Brook's chest to nuzzle and bury them in his shirt. "That's...I've seen that angel before!" she sobbed.

"No need to be afraid," Sylvestris said, slowly stepping onto the sand, "for I am merely the angel who has brought you together. My name is Sylvestris of the Archaic Past, and I am here to ensure your bond, for you are meant to be."

Trenton released his Kirlia, deciding that it was a good time to do so. On his command, the thing used its powers to lift him into the air. He 'flew' over to be beside Sylvestris and looked down at the two people. "And I am..." _Think fast Trenton, Brook knows your name. You need a cool code name._ "Nighthawk of the Rappin' Present!" Brook stared up at the two 'angels' that had appeared in the air above him.

He didn't know what, but something seemed familiar about that one that was the Present...

North wiped her eyes on Brook's sleeve and put her mouth real close to his ear. "_This is just such a magical moment,_" she whispered. "_That one looks just like someone I've seen before somewhere, but I don't know who. What is that? Deja vu?_"

Vandalgeist looked out at the scene and said to herself, "_Yesss!_" It was totally time for the best of them all to step up.

The most coolest of the angels flew out on her hoverboard, unfurling a single huge bat wing that served no real purpose. She was all decked out in a broad-shouldered red coat and a whole bunch of zippers and belts. "Stay back! Thanatos, your personal Rockin' Future comin' your way!" She did an aerial flip and landed on her feet next to the other angels. Then she flashed the couple a thumbs-up. "YEAH!"

Brook stared at the conglomeration of angels in front of him, then glanced over at North, "_I think I've seen two of them..._" He shook his head, staring at the crazy looking 'Rockin' Future.' He **knew** he'd seen the female one and one of the male ones, he just wasn't sure where he'd seen them from.

"Now you see before you the three guardian angels watching over your lives," Archaic Past said. "Each holds a special place in your hearts and minds. We make sure to guide you along the right path, as I have been and continue to be doing..." He looked over at North, who wasvstill crying.. "You need not cry o'er us."

"These aren't tears of sadness," she wailed, "these are tears of _joy!_"

"We are deeply touched by the fruits of our labor." Trenton looked at Brook, then at North, then back at Brook. Brook looked back at him.

They stared at each other.

"I **swear** I know him." Brook declared, waving his arms wildly.

"No, you don't, bro." Trenton promised Brook.

"On that day, months ago," Archaic Past said, steppingforward, "North was about to propose to you. However, a gang of muscular freaks in masks pushed you off the beach, and your relationship began to crumble, just from that little thing." He revealed the red ring in his fist. "This is not the ring you wanted to give to Brook; it is a ring crafted in heaven. This ring represents your love for each other, and as long as it stays on your finger, Brook, your bond will never be broken again." He gave the ring to North. "Present this to your love."

"Brook..." North backed up a bit. "Will you...marry me?" Broke stayed at North, tearing his gaze off of the 'Rappin' Present.' He would marry this crazy girl and be with her forever.

"Yes, North... I will."

North did a high-pitched scream and started jumping up and down. "Thank yo-o-ou! EEEEEE!" She leaped into his welcome embrace again, crying into his breast once more. Rockin' Future looked at the others with a worrisome expression, rubbing the back of her head. She kind of wanted to get out of here. Trenton too wanted to leave the place too, and he nodded his agreement. He wanted to leave soon as well, but first he had to give a speech. It had to be the greatest speech he'd ever given.

But he just shrugged instead.

Rockin' Future decided to take hold of the situation. "He's just quiet 'cuz he knows the present is happening now!" she said, making some wild hand signs and gestures. "There's nothing left to say, like, literally. Your love is as true as it gets. Woooooord."

"Hey, if you're Rockin' Future," North said, "why do you say out-of-date slang?"

"Hold up, homes. This slang is hip up in heaven."

"Ah. I get it!"

_I'm so frikkin' smooth!_ Vandalgeist told herself.

"Your relationship is off the chain. You gotta keep it that way!" She stepped off of her hoverboard and did a short cha-cha dance. She ended it with a peace sign. "Peace **_out._"** Rappin' Present went to do a bow...and his bowler hat fell off.

"I KNEW I'D SEEN THAT FACE SOMEWHERE!" Brook bellowed. Trenton groaned. Great, this was just what they needed. Their cover blown, it was time to think of what to say next. "That's the kid that punched me in the face!" Brook shouted, pointing angrily.

"Oops." Trenton said.

"Who did you say that was!" North exclaimed.

"Oh no," Rockin' Future said quietly, shaking her head a bit. Sylvestris started fumbling around with his fingers nervously.

"That's Trenton!" Brook roared, jabbing a finger toward the former Rappin Past. "And that's probably his friend Vandalgeist!" He stabbed a finger toward Rockin' Future. North blinked. Then she rubbed her eyes. Then she blinked again.

"No...we're angels. Images from your past have been linked to us, you see, and..." Archaic Past tried to explain it away.

"You _were_ on the phone," North said coldly.

"Someone who _looked_ and/or _sounded_ like me was -"

"Don't lie to us!"

"Woah, woah, lady!" Rockin' Future said, waving her hands around frantically. Her hardly-caring voice rekindled North's memory...and she discovered that this was indeed Vandalgeist! Not an angel, not anything else. Just that slob from earlier!

"People like pretending to be angels," North said bitterly, "_**you deserve divine punishment**_!"

Oh man. Trenton was getting worried about what would end up happening here. This wasn't good. He didn't want to get attacked or bitched out. Neither of those things were every fun. But Brook looked like he was ready to tear the boy in two with his hands.

"Oh we're gonna get you!" Brook growled.

Trenton looked over at Vandalgeist, wondering what they were gonna do. She picked up her hoverboard and got ready for clubbing. Sylvestris frantically rubbed behind his ear.

"You know what, Brook?" North said angrily. "These people need the most crushing defeat, and that is defeat in a Pokemon battle. Are you in?"

"I agree completely!" Brook said, grabbing one of the Pokeballs off of his belt. Trenton almost fell over in relief. A Pokemon battle? Trenton and the Geist were un-defeatable in those. This would be easy.

"We're in," Trenton said, turning to look over at his partner. "Right Geist? This should be easy, nothing we can't handle."

"Oh yeah. We're in. You don't have to fight with us, Sylvestris," she said, putting her board back down.

"Good," he said, rubbing more slowly now. "I don't have any."

"_**Psssssh. Psh psssssshhhhh.**_ …..Yes you do." Vandalgeist took a PokeBall out from one of her many pockets. "I'll use the Pokemon I just got today. That should be enough to totally beast these two idiots."

"Totally," Trenton said with a nod. "I think I'll use my... Eh, I'll just be cool like you and use the Pokemon _I_just got today!" He declared, reaching into his pocket and taking out a Pokeball of his own. Brook grabbed one of his own Pokeballs and released his Pokemon: the Grotle from before. Trenton watched and waited for North to release her Pokemon. Eventually she sent out a sparkling, smiling Togetic.

"Hm, wonder if I'm making the right choice," Vandalgeist said. "Go, Charmander!" She opened the PokeBall and summoned the shiny yellow Charmander. He-she-it looked pretty cool about all of this.

"Go, Kirlia!" Trenton said after his friend did, releasing the Pokemon. Or so he thought. "Oh, right. She's." He waved his arms at a rock and a Kirlia spun over to them.

"I forgot she was over there, whoops." Trenton said, and Brook facepalmed.

"Gee, that was dumb of you," Vandalgeist said.

"_Hey!_" North barked. "You're _all_ the dumb ones! Now can we get this battle going, or _can we get this battle**going!**_"

"Togeh toge!" Togetic said in a coarse voice, bobbing up and down with its arms waving.

"Okay, fine, sure, lady." Vandalgeist yawned. Charmander stared at her expectantly. "Go hit that Togetic with _uhh_ what was it? Flame Wheel." Charmander opened and closed its mouth a few times, slowly generating flames.

Brook was glad that Vandal hadn't ordered her Charmander to attack his Grotle. Apparently, their enemies were neglecting the fact that fire would tear through the Grass type. "Grotle, use Razor Leaf on that Kirlia!" he commanded. The Grotle did as he was told, summoning a few leaves from who knows where and throwing them at the Kirlia.

"Uhm. Uh. Uhm. Uh." Trenton had no idea what his Kirlia could do at that point, and watched as the leaves hit it. "Use, uh. Use Confusion!" He shouted finally, and the small Pokemon did as it was told, using its mental powers to lift the Grotle off of the ground and slam it back down again.

Meanwhile, a wheel of fire was spinning down the sidewalk at Togetic! "Dodge it," North said, "and use Aerial Ace!" Togetic did a stylish backflip over the wheel and soared with its little wings toward Charmander.

"Oh crap!" Vandalgeist said. "Flame Wheel Flame Wheel Flame Wheel!" Exactly three more wheels rolled down the path. Togetic started being a real show-off and diving through the loops, but came out slightly charred. It then came at Charmander with an uppercut and socked it in the chin. "Augh, no!"

North smiled at her fiancee. "Did you see that, Brook?"

"That was great, North!" Brook praised. Trenton waited for Brook to give another order to his Grotle, but the love-struck man just stared at his fiance dreamily.

"Well this is dumb." Trenton said, then looked at Kirlia. "Do that same thing again!" He ordered and the Kirlia did so, the Grotle waving his legs like a wild man.

"_**Grotle!**_" It cried, looking desperately at Brook, who just stared at North. Kirlia dropped the grass type thing on its back and it waved its legs, stuck on its shell like a turtle.

"When I look into your eyes," North said dreamily, "_I see diamonds._"

"Oh, hell!" Vandalgeist said. "Finish Togetic off for the easiest win ever."

"Togeh?" Togetic looked at North with a single tear in its eyes. In fact, Togetic was so busy crying one tear that it didn't notice the fifth and final Flame Wheel rising up behind it.

_FWOOSH._

But the Trainers didn't notice this one-sided match. No, not at all.

"Let's just walk away slowly," Trenton muttered as he watched Togetic and Grotle lose. "I think they won't even notice us." Brook and North were still in their woozy eyed gazing at each other.

"Hold up!" Vandalgeist of the Rockin' Future said. "I only did this mission because I wanted to get something out of it. You know, some material possession. Stealing a few chip bags from North's apartment isn't enough for me; I want cold, hard cash! _Some_thing, at least!"

Sylvestris spoke up. "That's...that's not very nice."

"Yeah well."

"So does that mean you want to go back to North's apartment and steal something else?"

"Hm..." Vandalgeist said. "Either way, I think we're about done here. Charmander, stop beasting Togetic and return!" Her PokeBall sucked Charmander back up, and Togetic lie on the ground smoking. "I really need to nickname that thing sometime."

Trenton nodded and returned his Kirlia, "Yeah, I need to nickname mine too..." He frowned then stretched. "I think we should just bug North and Brook about it. I mean, they're sure to give us **something.** Not that I really need anything. Geist what if I just give you some money out of my wallet."

Vandalgeist noticed the sky was darkening. It was getting pretty late. "You know what? The hell with it. I'm going home and getting out of this stupid awesome costume. I'm tired, I'm sweaty, and I think I'll go steal from North another time." She realized she was missing a prime opportunity to do some money-grabbing, but she didn't care **that** much. Besides, Trenton was a cool guy. Maybe he could use that money in the future.

"And you! Sylvester."

"Uh...Sylvestris."

"You're still not an angel. There's a Pokemon in your backpack. Stop lying to yourself!" Sylvestris had a big fat frown on his face. "D'aww. What are you going to do after today?"

"I'm, uh...going to leave. My duties as an angel are done for now. Should we cross paths again -"

Vandalgeist leaped onto her hoverboard again. "LIKE I WAS SAYING, BYE."

"WAIT. Vandalgeist, why don't we team up and do some more things together? That could be fun." Trenton offered, watching as the girl climbed onto her hoverboard. He had enjoyed her time with her so far, and didn't want to...ya know, not hang out with her anymore. That would be very fun.

She halted. "'Things'?"

"Things! Like...adventures."

"Yeah...we _could_ do more adventures. Just get back to me tomorrow on that."

"Where am I supposed to find you."

"I'm staying at a small hotel nearby. It's called Hotel Two Old People. They let me stay for cheap."

"Hotel Two Old People. Okay then. I will talk to you tomorrow. In the morning. About doing things and adventures."

"Sounds cool," she said with a smile. "Okay then. I'll see you, Wrappin' Present. Just make sure the cops don't get you! And I'm not just saying that because you're a gangster. I'm pretty sure the cops really are after us!" She looked toward town. The lights were just coming on, making it look like a real city. A little more like the Pristine Port she remembered. But she had a place to be, so she took off on her hoverboard and into the night.

Trenton also walked, but in the opposite direction, toward the other side of town. Brook continued to stare at North.

Grotle wiggled his legs.

* * *

IMAGES

(801) .us/img801/9611/request50 - THE Rockin' Future


End file.
